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Sept. 8 (UPI) -- The United States has called on Belarusian authorities to release all political detainees, including opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova, who was abducted a day before. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo commended Kolesnikova and all Belarusians for protesting the widely discredited re-election of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko last month amid a police crackdown that arrested hundreds.
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"We call on the Belarusian authorities to end the violence against their own people, release all those who have been unjustly detained ... and engage in meaningful dialogue with genuine representatives of Belarusian society," Pompeo said in a statement.
Kolesnikova is one of three female activists who formed the Belarusian Coordination Council seeking to annul Lukashenko's re-election.
Wednesday, opposition figure Maxim Znak was arrested by masked men during a raid, The Times reported. He was one of the few opposition leaders who remained free.
Znak sent a text message to a colleague that read "mask" before he was detained, the Times report said.
Monday, Kolesnikova and two members of the Cooperative Council were abducted from the streets of Minsk, attracting the condemnation of European leaders who demanded they be released.
The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine said in a statement that those two, Anton Rodenkov and Ivan Kravtsov, arrived in Ukraine after passing necessary border control measures but Kolesnikova was not with them. Rodnenkov told reporters he didn't know her location.
He said during his arrest he was hooded and interrogated before they agreed to go with Kolesnikova to Ukraine. He said at one point during the trip, Kolesnikova tore up her passport and left the vehicle.
Of the three women who founded the council, two have left for exile in neighboring countries.
Ukraine interior official Anton Gerashchenko said Kolesnikova's departure from Belarus was not voluntary.
"It was a forced expulsion from her native country in order to discredit the Belarusian opposition," he said in a statement on Facebook. "Maria Kolesnikova was not expelled from Belarus because this brave woman took steps to prevent her from moving across the border."
He added that she's in Belarus.
"Alexander Lukashenko is personally responsible for her life and health," he said.
Belarus has launched a criminal investigation into the Coordination Council, and Lukashenko told Russian reporters on Tuesday the trio had "fled" to Ukraine, Belarus' state-owned Belta news agency reported.
He said Belarus' authorities have detained Kolesnikova after she was thrown from a moving vehicle while her two companions made into the neighboring country.
Following reports of her abduction, British foreign secretary Dominic Raad expressed concern for Kolesnikova's welfare.
"Lukashenko's regime must make her safe return their highest priority," he said.
