The Kremlin Rejected Minsk’s Accusations of Trying to Influence Elections in Belarus

The Kremlin’s press service said the Russian Federation “never interfered in electoral processes.” Lukashenko said earlier that he was going to discuss with Putin the problem of interference in the internal affairs of Belarus from abroad. Russia rejected the accusations of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that Moscow is trying to influence the results of the presidential election in Belarus scheduled for August 9. “Here we can answer unambiguously that the Russian Federation has never intervened, does not intervene and is not going to interfere in anybody’s electoral processes, especially those that take place with our ally, Belarus,” said presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday , June 25, commenting on Lukashenko’s statements about Russia's possible interference in the Belarusian elections. Earlier on the same day, Alexander Lukashenko said that, in his opinion, Poland and Russia interfered in the presidential election in Belarus and that he was going to talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin about this “very difficult situation” in the near future. "Are they (opponents of the current Belarusian government. - Ed.) pushing us to dishonesty behaving this way? It’s clear that the puppeteers are behind them. They are on the one and on the other side. They live in Poland and come from Russia. We’ll talk about it with President Putin in the near future when we meet but this situation is very difficult. The most modern fake technologies are used, there is interference from abroad in our elections, internal affairs,” the Belarusian online Edition Ex-press.by quoted Alexander Lukashenko. On June 19, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated that she condemns the detention of political activists ahead of the presidential election in Belarus and urged Minsk to immediately release all “deliberately detained activists” and respect the rule of law ensuring political the competition.