Belarusian television broadcast Pratasevičius’s “confession” and wounds on his wrists

The former editor-in-chief of Telegram’s Nexta said he “admits” his guilt for organizing acts that violate public order.

The trial of R. Pratasevičius has not yet started, his communication with the lawyer is limited, but the state television channel has already announced the “confession” of A. Pratasevičius.

The journalist, who has wounded wrists, “criticizes” Belarusian opposition figures, including comrades Pavel Latška and Sviatlan Cichanouskaya. According to him, the opposition that left is financed by “Lithuanian taxpayers, the Belarusian diaspora and businessmen.”

Pratasevic also said that he “respected” the unrecognized president of Belarus, Aliaksandr Lukashenko.

“I will not hide, I have been very critical of Aliaksandr Grigorjevičius. It seemed to me that there were reasons for that, but I was a journalist all my life. As I became more and more involved in political work than journalism, the more I wanted to escape from there and the more I began to realize that many of the things that were criticized by Alexander Grigorievic were actually just a means of pressure. And that in many moments he behaved well, I apologize for that expression of a man with iron balls, “said Lukashenko, former editor of Nexta.

He called his trip to the Donbass “the biggest mistake of his life.” There he allegedly violated journalistic ethics. He called it a “logical” case in the self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic” and said he feared extradition.

The Lugansk People’s Republic Prosecutor General’s Office reported that it was investigating “Pratasevičius’s possible involvement in military operations in eastern Ukraine, in the Azov Battalion.” On the eve, the authority announced that it had found that “R. Pratasevic was involved in the shooting against peaceful residents of Donbass and the destruction of civil infrastructure “, and asked Belarus for an investigation. He was prosecuted in a self-proclaimed republic. Pratasevic” committed extremely serious crimes “using” heavy weapons “, including cannons, mortars and anti-aircraft weapons, according to the Lugansk People’s Republic Prosecutor General’s Office.

Andrijus Bileckis, former commander of the Azov Battalion, confirmed that R. Pratasevičius worked as a journalist in Donbas. “Yes, Raman really fought against the occupation of Ukraine together with Azov and other military units. He was with us in Shirokine, where he was wounded. However, his weapon as a journalist was not a machine gun, but a word,” emphasized A. Bileckis .

Lukashenko said Pratasevic faced the death penalty for “killing people” in Donbass.

‘TO. Pratasevičius repeats propaganda statements. The information expressed in my direction means only one thing: a person is simply tortured, he is forced to give false testimony, ”P. Latuška told The Insider.

R. Pratasevičius’s father, who saw the interview, told Dožd television that he was convinced that his son was under pressure from the KGB. According to him, his girlfriend may be sitting in the next cell, so he is scared.

R. Pratasevičius’s father also said that neither the lawyer nor the doctors were able to see his son.

“Knowing his son, everything that Raman says, he himself does not speak. Look at his first reaction at the beginning of the video, and even in the course of the video it is very clear that there is a struggle within him between what he has to say and what he doesn’t mean. It is very difficult for him, I am convinced that he was forced, I am convinced that he was intimidated, “said Dmitrijus Pratasevičius.

Delphi recalls that the former Nexta editor aired on ONT for the second night in a row.

Belarusian opposition blogger R. Pratasevich, who was arrested for forcibly landing on a Ryanair passenger liner in Minsk, said in a prison video that “he himself” had injured him.

The recording was shown Wednesday night on a one-hour show on ONT state television. The 26-year-old Pratasevich also says in the post that protests against the authoritarian Belarusian President Lukashenko are now pointless due to his severe crackdown, and suggests that the opposition wait for a more favorable time.

The program said Belarusian officials were unaware that Pratasevičius was on a Ryanair plane flying from Athens to Vilnius on May 23, which air traffic controllers had directed to Minsk due to a bomb threat.

No bomb was found on the landing plane, but Belarusian officials arrested R. Pratasevičius and his friend, a Russian citizen studying in Vilnius, who was flying in it.

Lukashenko sparked international outrage by ordering a fighter jet to take over the passenger liner. In response, the European Union banned the Belarusian national airline Belavia from entering its airspace, urged European companies not to fly into Belarusian airspace, and issued new sanctions on important sectors of the Belarusian economy.

Mr. Lukashenko, who has 9.3 million. He has ruled Belarus, which has had a population, with an iron fist for more than a quarter of a century, accusing the West of trying to “strangle” his country with sanctions.

After last year’s presidential elections last August, which the opposition and western democracies consider rigged, Belarus has been rocked for months by unprecedented mass protests. Mr. Lukashenko was declared the winner of that vote and secured for the sixth term.

The Minsk regime has taken brutal measures to suppress the protest movement. More than 35,000 were arrested. people, several protesters were killed, and all of Lukashenko’s main opponents were jailed or forced to go abroad.

More than 400 protesters were sentenced to severe prison terms.

Pratasevičius, who left Belarus in 2019, became one of Lukashenko’s main opponents. He ran the popular telegram channel Nexta, which played a key role in organizing anti-government protests, and was accused of inciting mass unrest. He faces up to 15 years in prison for this.

Last week, Lukashenko accused Pratasevičius of inciting a “bloody rebellion”.

In the aforementioned ONT show, R. Pratasevičius acknowledged that the protests had subsided and said that the opposition should wait until economic problems lead to discontent in a large part of society.

“We have to wait for the economic situation to get worse … and people take to the streets for, so to speak, a bowl of soup,” he said.