Wife of ‘Meduza’ correspondent missing in Minsk files police report in Moscow about his disappearance

Alina Solopova, the wife of missing Meduza correspondent Maxim Solopov, has filed a police report in Moscow. At the time of this writing, the last known contact with Solopov was more than 40 hours ago, when eyewitnesses saw police beating him up in Minsk. His current whereabouts are unknown.

Solopov was in Belarus to report for Meduza on the August 9 presidential election and opposition demonstrations that followed. He was apparently arrested around 1 a.m. on August 10 at a protest.

On August 11, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov demanded that officials in Minsk release all Russian journalists from police custody. At the same press conference with Lavrov in Moscow, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas made the same demands.

Alexander Khinshtein, the head of the Russian State Duma’s Mass Media Committee, told the news outlet RBC that Maxim Solpov and RIA Novosti correspondent Ilya Pitlaryov “are alive.” “The main problem is with determining their location because there are a lot of people arrested now in Minsk. Unfortunately, there’s no detailed information about their condition,” said Khinshtein.

According to the Belarusian Procedural-Executive Code, suspects being held for misdemeanor offenses cannot be jailed for more than 72 hours.