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, the flag of Belarus has been noticeably missing from the graphic next to her name, instead replaced with a simple blue rectangle. It's the third year that the Grand Slam has ruled that ...

With many of his political opponents either jailed or exiled abroad, Alexander Lukashenko, dubbed “Europe’s last dictator,” is all but certain to add a seventh term.

There is one staple missing from world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka’s introduction to the court at the Australian Open – and it is the same reason she has a “blue flag”. It is the third year ...

The Abu Dhabi Open has apologised to Russian world number 11 Daria Kasatkina for an administrative mistake that listed her as ...

and pushed for abandoning the country’s red-and-white national flag in favor of one similar to what it used as a Soviet republic. Belarus' top security agency kept its fearsome Soviet-era name of the ...

Several players at Australian Open 2025 have been competing without a national flag, with world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka included.

The leader also pushed the country to abandon its red-and-white national flag, in favour of one similar to that which it used as a Soviet republic. Belarus' top security agency propagates fear ...

Voting started following a period of almost non-existent election fever. In the capital Minsk, there’s an almost total absence of billboards promoting the candidates and there has been little in the ...

Near a border checkpoint between Belarus and Ukraine, anti-tank spikes and concrete pyramids block what was once a bustling ...

Within a year of assuming office, Lukashenko held a referendum that changed Belarus’s white-and-red flag to one closely resembling the old Soviet design. He told World War II veterans ...

The country's economy is largely state-planned and Lukashenko scrapped Belarus's white-red-white flag in the 1990s -- which ...