Czechs halt visas for Belarusians over role in Ukraine war

This Maxar satellite image taken and released on February 22, 2022 shows a close-up of assembled vehicles, part of a new deployment consisting of more than 100 vehicles and dozens of troop tents/shelters, at a small airfield known as the V.D. Bolshoy Bokov aerodrome near Mazyr, southern Belarus, north of the border with Ukraine.  (Photo by Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Technologies / AFP) 

PRAGUE — The Czech government said Wednesday it would stop issuing visas for Belarusians, except in humanitarian cases, over Belarus’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict.

“We have taken the same measure concerning visas (for Belarusians) as we had vis-a-vis Russia,” Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky told reporters.

The EU and Nato member of 10.7 million people stopped issuing visas for Russians on February 25, a day after Russia had invaded Ukraine.

“At the moment, Belarus is fully involved in the aggression towards Ukraine,” added Lipavsky.

Defence Minister Jana Cernochova said her ministry would send military medical aid, including combat lifesaver backpacks and folding stretchers worth almost a million euros ($1.1 million) to Ukraine.

“The brutality of the bandit Putin gets worse and worse, the number of injured people is growing, and we can’t just look on,” she added.

The Czech Republic has already sent 4,000 artillery shells, 30,000 pistols, 7,000 assault rifles, 3,000 machine guns, several dozen sniper guns and about a million cartridges, as well as other unspecified military materiel to Ukraine.

The government also announced civilian medical aid worth almost 4 million euros to Ukraine and declared a state of emergency, a legal vehicle designed to untie its hands in providing aid to Ukraine.

RELATED STORIES

EU toughens sanctions on Belarus over Ukraine invasion

Belarus moving more troops to Ukraine border—Lukashenko

UK freezes assets of Belarusian defense chiefs

Russia’s war on Ukraine: Day 7 situation on the ground