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What did 6 November 2020 mean for Belarus?
Summary
A look back at the EU sanctions on Belarus's leadership, and at an Italian court ruling for a Ukrainian national guardsman days earlier.
What happened on 6 November 2020, and why does it matter for Ukraine's neighbourhood? On that date the European Union announced sanctions against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, his son Viktor, police chief Ivan Tertel and Chief of Staff Igor Sergeenko. The measures came in the context of the 2020 Belarusian protests and formed part of the EU's evolving relations with Minsk.
The sanctions named the head of state himself, along with his son and two senior officials, one of them in charge of the police.
A Ukrainian verdict in Milan
A few days earlier, on 3 November 2020, the Milan Court of Appeal acquitted Vitaliy Markiv, a Ukrainian National Guard serviceman, finding him innocent of the crime for which he had been sentenced on 12 July 2019 to 24 years in prison.
The two stories were separate. Together they marked a week in which European institutions took decisions that bore directly on Ukraine and its neighbours.
