BELGRADE -- Demolition crews have begun tearing down one of the Balkans' most storied luxury hotels, using excavators to tear away the walls of the Hotel Jugoslavija in Belgrade to make way for a residential and business complex. The eight-story hotel's construction on the plans of Zagreb architect Lavoslav Horvat was monitored by Josip Broz Tito as a prestige project before it opened in 1969. It hosted celebrities, luminaries, and visiting dignitaries from around the world, including Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, U.
S. Presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, former UN Secretary-General U Thant, and a laundry list of luminaries before falling into disrepair and eventually suffering damage during NATO bombing in 1999. Construction of the 500 million euro project is slated to end in 2027.
To read the original story by RFE/RL's Balkan Service, click here . At least 12 Ukrainian citizens have been detained in Belarus on "extremism" charges, Kyiv's former ambassador to Minsk and current ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary, Ihor Kyzym, told the independent Russian media outlet Mediazona. Kyzym said the Belarusian side rarely informs Ukraine of such detentions.
Ukraine and Belarus's rift widened considerably when Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka allowed Russia to stage part of its February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine from Belarusian territory. Kyzym said some of the detained Ukrainians have met with the Ukrainian consul. But he stressed that many Ukraini.
