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Tuesday, September 08, 2020
One day after her disappearance, opposition activist Maria Kolesnikowa is in detention. The 38-year-old does not want to go abroad, but wants to continue fighting against the controversial President Lukashenko. Above all, he has to reach an agreement with the head of the Kremlin, Putin.
Alexander Lukashenko, also known as “the last dictator of Europe”, wanted to deport Maria Kolesnikova abroad under duress. But the 38-year-old, who as a studied musician, also masters improvisation, made this project impossible for the power apparatus. He broke her passport and prevented her from being deported to Ukraine. In doing so, he prevented him being driven out of the country like other opposition leaders against him will. He always emphasized that he would fight to the end.
It was a “brilliant performance” on the border, Maria risked everything to stay in the country, said her colleague Maxim Snak. The lawyer and Nobel Prize winner for Literature Svetlana Alexievich are the last members of the Presidium of the Coordinating Council of the opposition who have remained free in Minsk. With Kolesnikova now in custody, there is great concern for the most famous face of the democracy movement in Minsk.
For almost 24 hours, there was no trace of Kolesnikova, who was abducted in a minibus by unknown masked persons in Minsk on Monday. Only Lukashenko-controlled media recorded on Tuesday that Kolesnikova had escaped to Ukraine with her two employees. Then, the authorities reversed, the 38-year-old man was arrested for illegally crossing the border. There were international demands that Kolesnikova and many other political prisoners be released immediately.
Kolesnikova is a passionate and courageous fighter. With her heart-shaped hands, she faced heavily armed security forces. She is convinced that love for Belarus is her weapon with which she will lead the peaceful revolution to victory. In the conversation, Kolesnikova leaves no doubt that she is deeply convinced that Lukashenko’s days are numbered. But its fate is now mainly in the hands of one man: the head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin.
Moscow is getting more and more foreign with Lukashenko
The Russian president also has a reputation for being unscrupulous when it comes to dealing with members of the opposition. But Lukashenko’s style of throwing opponents into jail or out of the country does not meet with approval in Moscow. Rather, Putin had also said in view of the mass protests that the people of Belarus had the right to express their opinion. And he also called the August 9 presidential election, which was not recognized by the EU, after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, as not ideal.
Lavrov also openly called for dialogue in Belarus, admitting that Moscow had not escaped the divide between society and government. Therefore, experts in Minsk believe that Russia may decide to urge Lukashenko to surrender and install a new head of state loyal to Moscow. “Moscow’s support is no longer as clear as it was in the first days after the elections,” says political scientist Arseni Siwizki. Regardless of the protests, the number of those who would not recognize the results of the presidential elections is also growing.
The Kremlin’s daily announcements clearly show between the lines that it is not easy for Moscow to take Lukashenko seriously. More recently, Lukashenko appeared twice in a black bulletproof vest with Kalashnikov in hand as a defender of his presidential palace. And Moscow has not forgotten that it clashed during the election campaign and claimed that Russia wanted to incorporate its small neighbors.
A lousy agent parody or a stunt?
However, the highlight of the last time was a phone call between Berlin and Warsaw allegedly intercepted by its KGB secret service about the case of poisoned Russian opposition leader Alexej Navalny. Lukashenko not only had the “recording” published, which has since been often referred to as a forgery, but also served himself under Putin. The two want to meet soon in Moscow. The conversation, widely derided as a lousy agent parody, revolved around the fact that Chancellor Angela Merkel had organized the poison attack on Navalny to divert Putin’s attention away from Belarus.
Minsk analyst Artjom Schraibman said then that Lukashenko’s change of direction should also be taken seriously because the process, which can hardly be surpassed in the absurd, shows how desperately the head of state is now fighting for power. For Russia, with a Lukashenko in a world of ridiculous lies, there is no longer any guarantee that he will keep his promises, Schraibman noted.
From his point of view, the debate on a solution to the political crisis in Minsk continues in Moscow. On the one hand there are those who wanted to urge Lukashenko to surrender; on the other hand, those who wanted to guarantee the retention of power in exchange for maximum concessions. According to Schraibman, Lukashenko could hardly offer anything, except for other pieces of fillet from Belarusian state-owned companies.
The power struggle and protests in Belarus continue, with or without Kolesnikova. Svetlana Tichanowskaja, who claims to win the presidential elections, repeatedly calls for mass demonstrations against Lukashenko from his exile in the EU country Lithuania. But in an interview with Russian state media on Tuesday, she made it clear that she would stay. “I built Belarus for a quarter of a century. I don’t give up everything.”
