The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has not received any response from the Belarusian side about the disappearance of Ukrainians Pavlo Gryb in Homiel in August, 2017.
“As of today, we have not got any clarification from Belarus on the reasons for his detention,” the ministry says.
Currently, there is no no official warning against visiting Belarus by Ukrainians, but the Foreign Ministry still recommends its citizens to be careful when travelling to Belarus.
“Given Gryb’s situation and other cases of abducting people from the territory of Belarus, one should be more careful when visiting this country and take into account that it has a common entry area with Russia and is part of the single military and political space with it,” the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda quotes the spokesperson for the ministry.
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In late August, the citizen of Ukraine went missing in the Belarusian city of Homiel. As it emerged later, Russia blacklisted him as a ‘terrorist’ for his criticizing the Kremlin’s policy on the Internet. In Homiel he met with the 17-year-old girl from Sochi who later confessed that the FSB exerted pressure on her. Later, Pavlo Gryb was ‘found’ arrested in Russia’s Krasnodar.
According to the Russian side, 19-year-old Pavlo Gryb asked his acquaintance from Sochi to go off a bomb at a school assembly in Sochi. Ukraine says that the charge has been forged.
After a massive public outcry and diplomatic note, the Belarusian State Border Committee admitted the fact of his border crossing on August 24 and said Pavlo Gryb had not violated anything. According to a Krasnodar court, the arrest warrant was issued on August 17 (i.e., before Gryb crossed the Belarus-Ukraine border), when he was put on the international wanted list.
belsat.eu
