Rights groups, activists and independent media in Russia and Belarus endured increased government scrutiny, repressive laws and even were shut down and forced to operate from exile abroad.

However, because of a new scoreboard design, the flag has been a blue colour since 2024. "Players from Russia and Belarus are only able to compete in international tennis events as individuals ...

A damaged flag cannot be simply thrown away; it should be burned in private or destroyed by separating the stripes from each other – for example, by secretly cutting it in half. In 2004, a new holiday ...

Either maintaining Russia’s military bases in Syria or finding an alternative outpost in the Mediterranean will prove ...

Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko has been in power for more than 30 years and just won another election widely ...

Latushko said on Twitter, adding he hopes she will be able to return to a “New Belarus” and continue ... she wants to compete under a different flag. Tomasz Majewski, vice president of the ...

The country's economy is largely state-planned and Lukashenko scrapped Belarus's white-red-white flag in the 1990s -- which has since become the symbol of the opposition. Lukashenko prides himself ...

Belarus' flag (Image credits: AP) VILNIUS: A Belarusian activist who was freed from prison and escaped to Lithuania said Monday she was tortured and forced to undergo "punitive" psychiatric ...

for which Belarus has been used as a staging ground. The 27-year-old's name next to the Spanish flag during the draw for the WTA 500 event had raised eyebrows, before her team denied that she had ...