MINSK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th August, 2020) Belarusian presidential candidate Andrey Dmitriev expressed the belief, in his interview with Sputnik, that the government could use the situation with the detention of over 30 Russians to declare a state of emergency and cancel the presidential election, scheduled for Sunday.
Last week, 33 Russian citizens were detained in Belarus. Minsk suspects the detainees, whom it sees as employees of a private military company, of preparing unrest in the country and also claims they are linked to the Belarusian opposition. Kremlin said the detained persons were likely working for a private security company and were in Belarus in transit while en route to another country.
"I think this may happen," Dmitriev told Sputnik, asked to comment on experts' assumptions that the Belarusian government could use the situation to declare a state of emergency and cancel the vote.
The presidential candidate expressed the belief that the detainees were unlikely to be linked to the Belarusian opposition. Dmitriev called for waiting for the results of the probe.
"Frankly speaking, I will be shocked if the investigators' data shows that Mikola Statkevich had links to a Russian private military company. I do not think this may be so," Dmitriev said.
Statkevich and another major opposition figure, blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky, whose wife Svetlana is a presidential candidate as well, are considered to be suspects in the same criminal case on conspiracy to cause mass riots as the detained Russians.
