Word: belarussian
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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MOSCOW: Breaking up, the former Soviet Republic of Belarus has found, is hard to do. Which is why Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko will sign a "Union Treaty" to bring his country, if not all the way, than at least most of the way back into the Russian orbit. Russian President Boris Yeltsin approved an agreement Monday that will create a single citizenship for residents of both republics and unify their foreign and economic policies. Faced with a shattered economy that makes Russia's look robust, Lukashenko has pushed for integration with Russia, which in any case supplies Belarus with everything...
...Gallen, at 7:45 a.m. Over the next 60 hours, Fraenckel and Stuart-Jervis, together with two other balloons also piloted by Americans, drifted north toward Dresden, passed through Germany and eventually entered Poland. By 9:30 a.m. last Tuesday, they were poised to cross the Polish-Belarussian border...
Belarus claims that information never reached officials at the military base, 100 miles southwest of Minsk, where a blip produced by Fraenckel and Stuart-Jervis' balloon suddenly appeared on radar screens, dangerously close to one of several strategic missile bases that dot the area. Belarussian officials sent two Mi-24 helicopter gunships into the air to investigate. One of the choppers found the balloon, approached within 110 yards and attempted, without success, to establish radio contact. (Race organizers suspect that the pilots were unable to respond because their batteries had gone dead during the three-day flight...
...reply from inside the gondola, which was covered with thick canvas. After firing warning shots, the helicopter pilot became convinced that the craft was unmanned. Ordered to bring it down, the chopper fired about 20 bullets, enough to send the balloon and its gondola plunging to the forest below. Belarussian officials then kept silent for 24 hours while they sifted the wreckage and identified the mangled bodies...
Three days after the attack, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko had yet to make a public apology, which prompted Nicolas Burns, a U.S. State Department spokesman, to denounce Belarus' behavior as "outrageous" and "absolutely indefensible." Lukashenko eventually ordered an investigation of the episode and by week's end had invited American officials to participate. That may eventually shed light on who is responsible. But what cannot be explained, or fathomed, is how anyone can shoot down something as harmless as a helium balloon. "This is so senseless," said Ruth Ludwig of the Balloon Federation of America. "It's the most benign...