Around 150 protesters and journalists were briefly detained in Minsk and several dozen opposition activists in other major Belarusian cities in the evening of June 19 during spontaneous street protests against authoritarian President Alexandr Lukashenko.

Hundreds of demonstrators tried to form lines in central Minsk, while numerous drivers were honking their car horns in their support. The city authorities shut a number of central underground stations for several hours.

According to the Viasna human rights watchdog, which has no official registration in Belarus due to Minsk's opposition to its activities, around 150 protesters were briefly detained alongside several journalists, specifically a Reuters cameraman and a reporter with the RFE/RL Belarusian service.

Several dozens protesters were also detained in other major Belarusian cities, specifically regional centres Brest, Mogilev and Vitebsk.

The protests have started following this week's detention of Viktor Babariko, an outspoken critic of Lukashenko, who is going to participate in the August election. Babariko's son and the head of his election team, Eduard, was also detained on June 18.

According to bne IntelliNews' freelance contributor in Minsk, despite the fact that the protests have been the largest anti-Lukashenko street actions since 2017, the number of their participants remains limited, specifically around 2,000-3,000 in Minsk on June 18. The main body of demonstrators are students and young people, who traditionally take part in anti-government rallies.

It is also unclear whether the current protests will gather momentum and develop into a larger protest movement in Belarus on the eve of the August election, as over the past decade and a half, limited crackdowns on opposition have led to the halt of protests.

On June 18, Babariko was taken in for questioning by officers of the Department for Financial Investigations at Belarusian State Control Committee (SCC). Later the same day, the SCC confirmed his detention over the investigation of his "illegal [financial] activities".

According to the SCC, employees of Belgazprombank have also been arrested, and some of the suspects have allegedly "confessed" that they had illegally transferred hundreds of millions of dollars to Latvia via a scheme organised by Babariko.

Babariko collected 425,000 ballot signatures as of June 18, which is a record-high number for Lukashenko's rivals over the past two and a half decades. The necessary minimum is 100,000 signatures.

Last week, Belarusian law enforcers raided the headquarters of Belgazprombank, the local operation of Russian state-owned Gazprombank, as a part of their tax evasion investigation. For the past two decades Belgazprombank was headed by Babariko.

On June 11, officers of the Department for Financial Investigations at the SCC raided Belgazprombank as a part of a tax evasion and money-laundering case. Suspects in the case included representatives of private companies, as well as former and current bank managers, according to the SCC.

Babariko stepped down from his post in May with the aim of taking part in the August presidential election campaign. Belgazprombank is amongst the top-five largest Belarusian banks by assets. On June 11, the lender's shareholders – Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom and state-owned Gazprombank – declared their "full support" for the Belarusian operation.

Political tensions in Belarus have started to increase since the arrest of Sergei Tsikhanovski, a nationally known popular blogger who is critical of the Belarusian authorities, on May 29. He was arrested while he and his supporters were collecting signatures in support of his wife’s presidential bid in the western city of Grodna.

On June 1, four Belarusian human rights groups declared that the detained Tsikhanovski was a political prisoner and demanded his immediate release. In May-June, Belarusian law enforcers detained or arrested hundreds of anti-government protestors, activists and journalists in different regions of the country.