Belarus MFA strips Russian journo of accreditation over news story about coronavirus

In his reports, the jour­nal­ist cov­ered the coro­n­avirus cri­sis in Belarus.

In a recent news item aired on Chan­nel 1, Alex­ei Kru­chinin said that there was a sharp rise in the num­ber of peo­ple diag­nosed with COVID-19 after Ortho­dox believ­ers had cel­e­brat­ed East­er in Belarus. The jour­nal­ist gave the floor to the res­i­dents of the town of Stoubt­sy which is rumoured to be an infec­tion focal point. The lat­ter expressed con­cern over the sit­u­a­tion. It should be not­ed that Kru­chinin was report­ing from Stoubt­sy against the back­ground of new­ly-made graves.

Accord­ing to the Belaru­sian side, the Russ­ian crew’s accred­i­ta­tion was with­drawn as the sto­ry con­tained ‘sev­en fake sto­ries’ and ‘much lie’ about the coun­try.

On Thurs­day, Alex­ei Kru­chinin has been deport­ed from Belarus, the Chan­nel 1 press ser­vice says.

As of May 6, the Belaru­sian Health Min­istry has reg­is­tered the total of 19,255 per­sons infect­ed with the nov­el coro­n­avirus in the coun­try; 112 patients have died.