MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th August, 2020) Moscow hopes that the situation with Russian journalist Semen Pegov, who was detained in Minsk during Sunday night protests, will be resolved within one hour, the Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said on Monday.
Earlier in the day, the Russian Embassy in Belarus said that Pegov was being held in detention in the Belarusian capital and his location was known.
"There is good news about Pegov. Ten minutes ago, I was talking with Dmitry Mezentsev, our [the Russian] ambassador in Minsk, who said that they were expecting ... that this issue would be resolved," Zakharova said, as broadcast by the Russia 1 tv channel, adding that the foreign ministry hopes that "within one hour the issue would be settled."
Several Russian media outlets, including Sputnik Belarus, RT, TV Rain and Daily Storm, have said that their reporters have been detained in Minsk.
Meanwhile, Zakharova said that there were no positive updates about other detained reporters in the neighboring country, and Russia had yet to locate some of them.
The spokeswoman added that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was personally overseeing how the situation with arrested reporters was unfolding.
"This issue is also under the control of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of our country, Sergey Lavrov. I will repeat once again that we are constantly working on the matter," Zakharova said.
Protests were held throughout Belarus on Sunday night after preliminary results showed incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko winning the election with over 80 percent of the vote, while the campaign team of opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has refused to recognize the results.
