Russia supports Lukashenko’s constitution reform for Belarus

Bloomberg

Russia praised its embattled ally Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s proposals for constitutional changes, describing them as the best way to resolve unprecedented mass protests against his 26-year rule.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged Belarusian civil society groups to participate in drafting the country’s new basic law on Tuesday.
“They should take part if they want to get out of this crisis with a strengthened country and not stir up conflict,” Lavrov said in a question-and-answer session with students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.
“We see attempts to rock the situation.” Tens of thousands of Belarusians have been protesting each weekend since Lukashenko, 66, secured a sixth term with over 80% of the vote on August 9, sparking accusations of fraud. Russian President Vladimir Putin last week said he’d agreed to send police reinforcements to help quell the unrest in Belarus if needed and rejected the possibility of reviewing the presidential ballot’s results. The US the European Union have refused to accept Lukashenko’s re-election.
The opposition claims candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya won the election and has called on Lukashenko to begin talks on handing over power. His offer of constitutional changes — something he’s proposed in the past without
following through on — has won little support among his critics.
He announced plans to hold a referendum on constitutional revisions focussed on court reforms. Lukashenko has rejected opposition calls to return to the 1994 constitution that was later amended to strengthen the presidency’s powers. The Belarusian leader responded with mass arrests and a brutal security crackdown which has failed to stamp out the demonstrations and strike actions by workers. Students marching in Minsk against the government were met by riot police.
Belarus, a nation of 9.5 million sandwiched between Russia and three members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is seen as a key bulwark by the Kremlin against encroachment by the US-led military alliance.

Russia passes 1 million Covid-19 cases
Bloomberg

Russia became the fourth country to pass 1 million confirmed cases of Covid-19, joining the US, India and Brazil, on the day schools across the country reopened for the new academic year.
The government’s virus response centre reported 4,729 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday, bringing the total to 1,000,048. The number of new daily cases has gradually declined from a peak of more than 11,000 in May.
“The situation has stabilised in Russia,” Anna Popova, the head of Russia’s public health regulator, said Monday evening on state-run Rossiya-1 television. “The decrease continues to an extent, but today we are seeing several hot spots, or outbreaks.”
The death toll increased by 123 to 17,299, a mortality rate that remains much lower than that of many other large nations. The number of fatalities is also significantly below those reported by the Federal Statistics Service.