Russia and Belarus are digging in today in a deepening dispute over natural gas prices, as Russia's state-run gas monopoly Gazprom started the countdown towards a January 1 supply cut unless the neighbouring nation agreed to pay more.

More than 5,000 opposition protesters massed in the Belarusian capital Minsk today to mark the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster despite police fencing off a downtown square where they had planned to rally.

The EU called on its European partners today to protest at Belarusian violence against demonstrators and the detention of opposition leader Alexander Kozulin.

Thousands of Belarusians defied a massive show of force by the hard-line government in Minsk today, protesting in streets swarming with riot police and gathering peacefully in a park to denounce President Alexander Lukashenko after a disputed election returned him to power.

Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, declared the overwhelming winner of weekend elections, said today that his opponents had failed to topple him in a foreign-backed “revolution".

Observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Council of Europe today said that Belarus’ presidential election did not meet standards for a free and fair vote.

Belarusians overwhelmingly approved a referendum on scrapping presidential term limits, the Central Elections Commission announced today, allowing the authoritarian leader of the former Soviet republic to seek a new term in 2006.