Sweden vs Belarus Teddy Bear Row Escalates
Wednesday, 08 August 2012

Belarus has taken strong diplomatic action against Sweden following a strange stunt involving parachuted teddy bears.

Sweden says all of its diplomats have been expelled from Belarus, which has also closed its embassy in Stockholm.

Belarus was angered when a Swedish public relations firm dropped about 800 teddy bears with pro-democracy messages from a light aircraft!

President Alexander Lukashenko sacked his air defence chief and head of border guards over the 4 July incident.

He told their replacements not to hesitate to use force to stop any future air intrusions from abroad.

On Tuesday Belarus's KGB state security service said two Belarusian men, Anton Suryapin and Sergei Basharimov, had been detained on suspicion of complicity in "illegal intrusion".

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said Mr Suryapin, who runs the Belarusian News Photos website, had merely uploaded photos of the teddy bears.