the belarussian journalist hanna liubakova has tweeted: protests have taken place in the capital, minskused live bullets against protesters in the south western city of brest. in the city of gomel a man died after being arrested and kept in a police van, the second death in the unrest. and workers at some state—run companies have downed tools as part of a general strike. here you can see pictures of workers from the huge state—run be—laz factory, which makes haulage equipment. they're chanting for the president, alexander lukashenko, to stand down. since sunday, more than 6000 people have been detained by police and security forces. i should warn you, the footage we're about to play from belarussian state tv is disturbing. it shows detained protesters being asked if they will start the revolution again. they respond no. some of them are injured. they all look scared. the state tv channel has reported that many of those arrested were carrying weapons and foreign passports, but these reports have not been verified. this is the scene outside a prison north of minsk. relatives are waiting o

. >> schifrin: hanna liubakova is a journalist for the independent site outride.rs. >> whenever a person transported from one place to another, that person was beaten. there were 80 people that were held there for 24 hours, without food, without water, and basically they could not sleep. >> schifrin: since sunday, authorities have cracked down on massive protests that followed what they call an election stolen by alexander lukashenko, known as europe's last dictator. the demonstrations are the largest since independence, 30 years ago. when one protest of 10,000 reached a government building today, soldiers laid down their shields. today, the protests expanded to workers at state-owned factories, the backbone of the belarusian economy, who organized a general strike. these workers were asked to raise their hand if they voted for lukashenko, or for opposition candidate sviatlana tsikhanouskaya. >> many those who were not interested in politics have suddenly understood the nature of this government, of this president. those who are not against lukashenko are now taking another side because

here is a tweet from the belarussian journalist hanna liubakova. ..e kremlin has officially commented on the situation for the first time. a spokesperson said conditions should be created for dialogue but claimed there was foreign influence in the country... livia paggi is the head of political risk at gpw, a global risk analysis company. she says russia has been taking a cautious approach. they know that it could be very dangerous to intervene, that they could create another ukraine. economically, russia does not have the ability right now to sustain a war in belarus, nor is there the popular support to do so. and also we have to keep in mind that these protests are not pro—western or anti—russia. so in some ways, it could be much more beneficial for russia to be on the sidelines and have these dialogues with the opposition. well, a little earlier, i spoke with maryia sadouskaya—komlach, a journalist from belarus. this reaction was very much expected, but the essence of it makes us raise eyebrows, like so late? the police violence was happening all o