Lukashenko: Ukraine violated agreement not to publicize detention of journalist Sharoyko in Belarus
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that he discussed the detention of journalist Pavlo Sharoyko on suspicion of espionage with the Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko in the beginning of November in the UAE.
"He [Poroshenko] asked me this question. And I told him the facts. I admitted to him that from the first until the last day of the operation to neutralize the spy network, I was in the know. This practice was immediately reported to me by the chairman of the KGB," Belta quotes Lukashenko as saying.
He added that an agreement was reached at the meeting with Poroshenko to not make the case public. However, the Ukrainian side violated it.
"They raised a hubbub, everything was poured into the mass media. What was left for me to do? I canceled my decision, and said to leak some facts to the media, so that people understand that we are not aggravating the situation in relations with Ukraine. And we showed them. This man confessed where he worked, how he worked. There is a heap of additional material. I do not know why this needed to be a scandal. But they violated our agreement," Lukashenko said.
At the same time, he noted that there is no need to look for any trace of Moscow in this matter.
On November 17, it became known that UA: Ukrainian Radio correspondent Pavel Sharoyko was arrested in Minsk on October 25.
On November 20, the State Security Committee of Belarus announced Sharoyko's detention and said that he was accused of "creating an agent network in the Republic." According to the KGB, Sharoyko admitted that he was a Ukrainian career intelligence officer, and that the coordination of his intelligence activities was allegedly carried out by Igor Skvortsov, an adviser of the Ukrainian Embassy in Belarus. As a result, the latter was declared persona non grata.