Minsk

Lithuania plans to build a barrier on the border with Belarus and deploy troops to prevent migrants from illegally crossing into its territory, news wires reported. According to PM Ingrida Simonyte, more than 1,000 migrants had been held after crossing the border since 1 June.

This was announced today by the European Council.
On June 21, the EU Council imposed sanctions against 78 Belarusian citizens and seven entities for serious violations of human rights and repression of civil society, the opposition and journalists, and for the forced landing of a passenger plane.

The Baltic countries stressed the need for a more cautious approach to this issue.
"It was a very comprehensive and not very easy debate," the German chancellor told reporters after the first day of talks in Brussels, Reuters reports.

The Council of Europe on Monday said several EU candidate countries in the Balkans had aligned themselves with the Council Decision to strengthen restrictive measures on Belarus by introducing a ban on the overflight of EU airspace and access to EU airports of Belarusian carriers of all kinds.

Foreign Affairs Minister Bogdan Aurescu will attend, on Monday, the meeting of the foreign ministers of the EU Member States (Foreign Affairs Council), which will take place in Luxembourg.

Echoing the forced landing of a Ryanair flight travelling between two EU member states and the arrest of political activist Roman Protasevich in Belarus, the European Parliament has called for further sanctions on the hardline regime in Minsk.

A top American diplomat told Congress on Wednesday that the Biden administration plans to impose additional sanctions on the authoritarian regime in Belarus — a significant step as lawmakers agitate for tougher punishments against a top ally of Vladimir Putin.

While EU sanctions against Belarusian officials are welcome, Russia's role should not be ignored by Brussels, argues Ilya Zaslavskiy. But targeting Kremlin cronies, rather than the Russian people, would be much fairer and far cheaper than putting an extra NATO brigade in Eastern Europe.

A Belarusian political activist stabbed himself in the neck on the first day of his trial on June 1 and was rushed to hospital, a rights group said.

Viasna, an independent rights group monitoring the trial of Stepan Latypov, said it believed the activist had tried to commit suicide following pressure in detention.

Only those who have permanent residence permits in a foreign country are allowed to leave the country. The opposition assessed it as "an absolute violation of the law".