Head of Hyundai Marketing Department and Press Secretary of the country’s largest mobile operator A1 detained in Belarus

In Minsk, 45-year-old head of the marketing department of Hyundai AvtoGrad company Sergey Babashkov and 34-year-old press secretary of A1 company, the largest telecommunications service provider in the country, Nikolai Bredelev, were detained. In the pro-government Telegram channels, videos appeared in which both talk about their “offenses”.

According to Babashkov, he was subscribed to the telegram channels Radio Svaboda and Shraibman, which were recently recognized as extremist in Belarus. He also said that he participated in protests in August 2020, when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of the country to express their disagreement with the results of the presidential elections.

In turn, Bredelev said in the video that he was subscribed to such “extremist” telegram channels as “MotolkoPomogi” and “Nick and Mike”. Berdelev has known the author of the first channel, the famous blogger Anton Motolko, for more than eight years. The Belarusian authorities believe that Motolko is guilty of riots, incitement of social enmity on the basis of professional affiliation and the creation of an extremist group.

Previously, there were recognized extremist formation Internet resources of the TV channel “Belsat”, which actively covered the protests. Many of the TV channel’s journalists have been tried and arrested on several occasions. Also by extremist groups were recognized Telegram channels Nexta, Nexta-Live and Luxta. Telegram channel Nexta became the most popular resource in the country during the protests.