Circle the area on this map
A. A former part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, Belarus’ closest political and economic partner is Putin’s Russia. President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron hand since 1994, allowed Putin’s forces to use his nation to invade Ukraine in February 2022.
B. At the beginning of the invasion, Russia was expected by many to quickly take the capital Kyiv and control of Ukraine. As the war has dragged on, Wagner mercenaries have suffered many of the casualties, and Prigozhin has openly criticized Russia’s military leadership as incompetent and corrupt.
D. The private military company has more than 50,000 employees who have fought in dozens of countries. The private army has operated in support of Russian interests with equipment from Russia’s defense department. But during Saturday’s mutiny, Putin accused Prigozhin and his supporting troops of treason.
C. For decades, Russian political prisoners ended up in forced-labor camps in Siberia, the vast Asian area of Russia. Under the Soviet Union, the prisons were run by an agency called the Gulag. Over the years, the word gulag has been used to refer to any forced-labor prison.