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The events of the past month in Belarus show that Lukashenko has become completely dependent on Russian influence. If in the past he could still pretend to be an “intermediary between East and West” and the label of the “last European dictator”, especially after the events in Ukraine in 2014, was less and less placed, the 2020 crackdown on peaceful protests and the Kremlin’s spreading a flood of disinformation, blaming the West for everything, ultimately prevented it from returning to the international arena as a politically at least somewhat independent figure.
Arrest for pompous strike
On July 29 this year, 33 smokers from the Russian private military company Vagner were loudly detained in a sanatorium near Minsk.
The Belarusian state media were the first to announce the arrest, and it was they who distributed exceptional images of the arrest. In addition, the names of the suspects were made public and a video of the arrest was shown: people lying on the ground, foreign currency, telephones, instructions, Vagner paraphernalia.
Another “threatening” message has been announced: 200 strikers are trying to enter Belarus, which should destabilize the situation on election day.
On July 30, the Belarus Investigative Committee said the detained Russians were suspected of seeking mass disturbances. It was noted that “there are links with the already detained blogger Sergejs Cichanouskis”, who later had to flee to Lithuania and was recognized as the husband of Svetlana Cichanouskaya, who was recognized as the de facto winner of the presidential elections.
Furthermore, President Lukashenko of Belarus, Russia’s strategic partner, immediately blew his chest and demanded explanations from the Kremlin. At the time, with the presidential election only a week away, the people were tired of the tyrant who had usurped the state for decades, and Lukashenko’s own electorate no longer believed in intimidation in the West.
The goals of such a political step could have been several: to attract voters who fear Russia’s influence in Belarus or who are dissatisfied with events in Ukraine, to show that Lukashenko is a strong leader.
At the same time, he opened the hands of the government’s crackdown on dissatisfied citizens: the country’s top leaders watched on television provocations and “foreign smog” against Belarus.
Russia at the time explained that the mercenaries flew “completely legally” to work under contracts (to protect objects) through Minsk to Istanbul.
Mr Lukashenko said on August 3 that the mercenaries “had told everything”: they had “been specifically sent to Belarus”. And he accused Russia and the country’s media (whose major propagandists would be invited to the palace in a few months to give them an exclusive interview) of trying to cover up the situation and asked “to tell the truth.”
PHOTO GALLERY. Vagner hit catches
The strikers returned home calm and calm
On August 15, a week after the elections, with the start of massive protests in the country over the falsification of election results, Minsk suddenly released the 32 Russian citizens previously suspected of terrorist activity. The 33rd detainee has Belarusian citizenship and has also returned home successfully.
“The Belarusian side did not raise any conditions. The transfer of Russian citizens to Moscow was carried out on the basis of bilateral agreements and goodwill,” the Interfaks source said at the time.
Earlier, on August 6, the Russian media received an “exclusive font specification. In an interview with a masked man, the man said that the project “Damage to Russia-Belarus relations” had been conceived in Ukraine from start to finish, but had failed due to information leaked from Zelensky’s office.
Ukraine, of course, has denied this version raised by Russia. Ukrainian intelligence chiefs and politicians have pointed out that it is virtually impossible to lure Vagner strikers to another country without knowledge of Russian security, even “private” orders are controlled by the FST or GRU.
Finally, another “font spec. services “, which” revealed the full picture of the provocation. “An article published in the Komsomolskaya Pravda itself, which was later distributed to all major Russian portals, claimed that the organizers of the” wagon “detention campaign were the service Ukrainian security.
Apparently, shortly after the incident, it became clear that “tickets were bought for a group of people on Ukrainian territory” and that “counterfeit phone numbers were bought in Kiev.” Publication source Russian spec. According to the service, “the provocation caused by the noise was controlled from Patoržinskio str. 5/7 in Kiev ”.
Furthermore, it is hard to believe that Belarus, which has strategic cooperation with Russia and deep ties with the country’s security structures, accepts and trusts the information provided by the Ukrainians about Russian citizens who came to Belarus to provoke riots without listening to none of their representatives. Arrested – would show a report on state television at the best of times and be embarrassed in public.
Furthermore, shortly after his arrest, Mr. Lukashenko personally claimed that “the men confessed everything themselves.” So it must be believed that Minsk unconditionally trusts Ukrainian intelligence and, on that basis, damages relations with its only ally, Moscow, which is already reminiscent of the script of a science fiction book.
Mr. Lukashenko’s apology
After many have forgotten this story, on August 27, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the arrest of the Vagner strikers a special between Ukraine and the United States. action of services. He said someone had simply relocated these people to a neighboring republic, “set completely legal targets for them and used them to cause riots during the pre-election campaign.”
Putin’s younger brother, as Lukashenko is called, told Russian media that the detained Russians had apologized before being sent back home.
“I sent my son (the oldest, Victor, a security adviser) to apologize to these people and ask them where they want to go,” explained Lukashenko, who called himself President of Belarus.
The attempt to accuse Western countries of “provocations against Belarus and Russia” ended with Lukashenko’s involvement in Russia’s anti-Western propaganda scheme, which had been organized for many years.
For the past six years, Russia has become synonymous with propaganda stories. By the middle of this year, Belarus had managed, at least partially, to avoid getting involved in this swamp and to steer clear of its great neighbor’s information policy towards the West, but Wagner’s smog story may be in epic Russian propaganda works. like the “Slovenian Quarterly Boy” or the Spanish Dispatcher. from Kiev, who saw a Boeing passenger knock down the rack of a Ukrainian fighter plane.
It is unlikely that this plan, whoever invented it, the structures of Belarus or Russia, has brought any benefit to the dictator from today’s perspective.
It should be difficult to convince the public that 200 strikers from the Russian private military company Vagner, hired by Ukrainian specifications, have invaded the country. services, which regulate “trainers” in the Czech Republic, Poland, the United States and Lithuania, when “owners” beat women and retirees on the streets of their country’s capital.
The President of Belarus, whose authorities are not recognized by the West, Alexander Lukashenko gave an interview to Russian state media. He acknowledged that “he was in power for some time”, but affirmed that “only he can save Belarus.”
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