Tag: Loekasjenko

The
Saker heeft een analyse geschreven over de situatie in
Wit-Rusland (Belarus) n.a.v. de verkiezingen in dat land.

Volgens
de Saker is het duidelijk dat de CIA, de Oekraïense geheime dienst
SBU en de Wit-Russische geheime dienst KGB de boel manipuleren in
Wit-Rusland. “Honderden Russen’ zouden naar Wit-Rusland zijn
gestuurd om de boel de destabiliseren, informatie die van de
Oekraïense SBU kwam, deze mannen werden afgeschilderd als
terroristen, opstandelingen en leden van de Russische Wagner PMC
(Private Military Company)…… (het gaat overigens niet om ‘honderden Russen’ maar om een dertigtal)

Achteraf
blijkt het dat deze Russen (veiligheidsagenten) werden ingehuurd door
een veiligheidsbedrijf in Wit-Rusland en zouden op doorreis zijn
geweest naar landen als Soedan en Venezuela. Echter ‘ze mistten de
aansluitende vlucht’ en waren daarom genoodzaakt te overnachten in Minsk.
Diezelfde nacht overviel een zwaar bewapend ‘KGB’ team het hotel en
werden deze mannen gearresteerd, terwijl de Russen niet eens in het bezit waren van wapens….

Daarop
werd Rusland beschuldigd chaos en geweld te willen uitlokken in
Wit-Rusland, een vergelijking met het Maidan plein In de Oekraïense
hoofdstad Kiev, al werd de opstand in Oekraïne georganiseerd en
geregisseerd door de CIA…… Hillary Clinton destijds minister van
BuZa onder ‘vredesduif’ Obama trok daar zelfs 4 miljard dollar voor
uit en ook het geweld tegen demonstranten door sluipschutters, kwam
rechtstreeks uit de koker van de CIA…… (zo meer daarover)

De claim
dat Rusland de boel zou willen destabiliseren in Wit-Rusland is meer
dan belachelijk, daar Rusland wel uitkijkt om geweld aan te wenden in
Wit-Rusland. De informatie waarop deze leugen is gebaseerd kwam zoals gezegd van
de ‘uiterst betrouwbare’ Oekraïense SBU……. Bovendien zo voert de
Saker aan weet de Wit-Russische KGB alles wat er gebeurd in
Wit-Rusland en daarmee bedoelt hij letterlijk alles, ofwel de claim
dat deze Russen onrust wilden zaaien (en het bewind van
Loekasjenko omver zouden willen werpen) is grote nonsens, waar
de kennis van de KGB over alles wat zich afspeelt in Wit-Rusland alleen maar het gegeven versterkt dat Rusland geen geweld zou
gebruiken tegen het bewind in Minsk……

Lees het
uitvoerige relaas van de Saker en verbaas je (zoals ik) over de
machinaties van alweer het westen in Oost-Europa en die er volledig
op is gericht om van Wit-Rusland een zoveelste vazalstaat van de VS
(en de door haar militair geleide NAVO) te maken, zeker als je nagaat dat dit land strategisch
is gelegen….. Mocht het de VS lukken om van Wit-Rusland een vazalstaat als te maken, zoals Oekraïne, heeft Rusland weer een deel van
haar grens waar de VS en haar NAVO-lidstaten met een leger op de
drempel van haar voordeur staan, zoals dit al het geval is met de
Baltische Staten, een deel van Oekraïne en ga nog maar even
door……. 

Ben het overigens niet eens met de Saker wat betreft de voormalige Oekraïense president Janoekovitsj. Deze president was wel democratisch verkozen en dat in door internationale waarnemers goedgekeurde verkiezingen….. En ja, Janoekovytsj had vooral veel aanhang in het oosten van Oekraïne en op De Krim (inclusief de oorspronkelijke bevolking van dat schiereiland). Waarschijnlijk doelt de Saker op het geweld dat werd gebruikt op het Maidanplein tegen demonstranten, terwijl dat zoals gezegd het resultaat was van VS manipulatie, zoals ook ‘de opstand’ daar werd georganiseerd door de CIA….. Het feit dat Janoekovytsj ‘pro-Russisch’ was had alles te maken met een voor Oekraïne heel lucratief vrijhandelsverdrag dat hij sloot met Rusland, terwijl een verdrag met de EU uiterst onvoordelig was voor Oekraïne……(iets waar je de westerse reguliere media en politici nooit over hoort!!)

Onder
het artikel kan je klikken voor een ‘Dutch vertaling’ dit neemt wel
enige tijd in beslag. Het artikel van de Saker werd eerder gepubliceerd op The Unz Review en werd door mij overgenomen van Information Clearing House:

Putin
and Russia are facing a very serious crisis in Belarus

By
The Saker

August 12, 2020
“Information
Clearing House”
–  Some of my longtime readers might have noticed that I rarely
(if ever!) wrote about Belarus or President Lukashenko.  As
always with the blog, there always is a reason for why I do mention
something and no less a reason why I do not mention something. 
In the case of Belarus or Lukashenko, my reason for not writing about
them was the exact same why I never wrote about the Ukraine before
2013: I was both uninspired and mostly disgusted with what I saw
taking place there.  And I did not feel strongly enough to write
about it.  That changed for the Ukraine with the Euromaidan.

Now the events in
Belarus force me to address this very unpleasant topic: Belarus is
facing a complex and dangerous crisis which might well result in a
major crisis inside Belarus and even a loss of sovereignty.  But
first, before we look into what just happened, let me begin by a
quick “mini-primer” about Belarus.  Here is what I think
everybody ought to know about this country:

• Belarus
  is a completely artificial creation, even more artificial than the
  Ukraine.  At least in the Ukraine there were “westerners”
  (Galicians) who truly were not Russians at all (you can think of
  them as the “real Ukrainians” if you want) and whose hatred for
  everything Russian was every bit as rabid as the one of the
  Interahamwe
  of Rwanda.  There is no meaningful equivalent to the Banderites
  in Belarus.

• Lukashnko
  was no more pro-Russian than Ianukovich.  This is crucial.
  Lukashenko was always pro-Lukashenko, not pro-Russia. Both the
  West and Lukashenko like to say that Belarus is the only real
  Russian ally. This is false.  Technically, Russia and
  Belarus are supranational union states.  However, it is true
  that Lukashenko tried to use the historical identity between the
  Russian and Belarusian people to demand that Russia help him out
  over and over and over again.  And until recently, Russia did.

• As
  a country, Belarus is a quasi perfect police state with an extremely
  competent and feared KGB (yes, in Belarus they kept the name) which
  controls everything and everybody.  This is also crucial for
  reasons I will explain below.

• As
  for the Kremlin, it always wanted to foster a reunification with
  Belarus but this process was never fully completed due to regular
  problems, and even crises, between Moscow and Minsk.  Russia
  poured immense sums of money to keep the Belarusian society from
  crashing.

• Finally, Belarus
  is really a poor country with very limited resources.  For
  Russia, however, Belarus is a crucial military ally, one which plays
  a central role in Russian defense plans.  If the US and NATO
  will be successful in taking control of the country, this will be a
  major strategic threat for the Russian security.

These are just a few
pointers to compare and contrast Belarus with the Ukraine.

Now let me summarize
what just happened.

The Belarusian
authorities have declared that “hundreds” of men (supposedly
Russians) have been sent to Belarus with nefarious intentions. 
Lukashenko has since officially confirmed that he got this info from
the Ukrainian SBU. The men themselves were described as terrorists,
insurgents, members of the “Wagner” PMC, subversives, etc. and
their goals were described as killing Lukashenko, triggering a new
“maidan” in Belarus, create chaos, etc.

Frankly, the
Belarusian authorities never got their story straight and, frankly
again, this really makes no difference at all.  Here are two
things which I consider as indisputable:

1. Russia
   would never even consider using force or illegal covert operations
   against Lukashenko and/or Belarus

2. The Belarusian
   KGB knows everything of any importance taking place in Belarus

I would even argue
that argument #2 very much supports argument #1.

Whatever may be the
case, it appeared
that a group of Russian security guards had been recruited by a
Belarusian firm to provide security in various countries (Sudan and
Venezuela is often named). They traveled to Belarus and planned
to fly out of Minsk for their final destinations. They were
delayed, apparently deliberately, then they missed their flight and
were told to go and rest at a hotel which happened to be located not
far from the residence of Lukashenko. In the middle of the
night, a KGB swat team moved in with flash-bang grenades and guns
drawn and brutally arrested everybody in spite of the fact that none
of the sleepy Russians offered any kind of resistance. No
weapons of any kind were found, no evidence of any covert plans
either, but the authorities declared that since these men were not
drinking or harassing waitresses and since they kept to themselves,
this was a clear proof that they were on a secret mission (I am not
joking!).

All of the above is
absolute and utter nonsense and we should not get distracted by the
minutia of this clearly fabricated pretext.

Here is what really
happened.

It now appears that
the Ukrainian secret service SBU (which does nothing without Uncle
Sam’s approval) mounted a complex covert operation to try to get
Belarus and Russia into a confrontation.  The entire operation,
including recruitment, purchase of airline tickets, etc was, in fact,
run from the Ukraine.  This was also the biggest mistake the
Ukies did: they did not hide their actions well enough and it took
the Russians special services less than 24 hours to figure out the
entire plan and leak
it to the media (in Russian). The fine details are still
being ascertained, but the bottom line is this: the Ukrainians
pretended to be a security firm looking for men with proven combat
experience, especially those who fought in the Donbass against the
Ukronazi forces. Once recruited for some pretty typical guard
duties, these men were to be flown to Minsk where they would miss
their plane and be left waiting for the next opportunity to leave
Belarus.  At this point, the SBU seems to have contacted the
Belarusian KGB and “warned” them about Russian “mercenaries”
sent by Russia to kill Lukashenko or, at least, overthrow him.

It is also obvious now
that the SBU specially wanted Russians which had combat experience in
the Donbass to then ask Belarus to hand them over to Kiev.  Such
a demand was made almost immediately for most of the men in this
group.

So far so “good”
(not really, but you know what I mean), but here is when the
Belarusians and Lukashenko himself started to act really strangely.

The first logical step
for the Belarusian authorities should have been Lukashenko calling
Putin and asking for an explanation.  Alternatively, the head of
the Belarusian KGB could have called the head of the FSB and ask him
for clarifications.  But, instead of doing that, the Belarusian
KGB organized this ridiculous “seizure” of the Russian
“mercenaries” while the latter were asleep in their hotel and had
no idea whatsoever what was going on.

Next, instead of
working with the Russians, Lukashenko just gave a long interview to
one of the most talented and most morally repugnant Ukie journalist,
Dmitrii Gordon (who proudly proclaims that he is an SBU agent).

But then it only got
worse.

Lukashenko pounced on
the opportunity to, yet again, engage in his typically long-winded
rants against Russia.  He even went as far as to suggest that
Belarus might extradite some of these Russian men to the Ukraine
(which, as we now know, had provided a list of wanted men to the
Belarusian KGB).  From these actions it became immediately clear
to the Russians that Lukashenko was playing some kind of dirty game
in the last days before the Presidential election which took place on
Sunday.

So what could explain
the outright bizarre behavior of the Belarusians?

Reason one: Simply put
– Lukashenko’s popularity is declining as fast as the disposable
income of the Belarusians.

Reason two: The US is
clearly engaged in major strategic PSYOP to seize control of Belarus.

Reason three: The
Belarusian state in its current condition is simply not viable and
never was.

Let’s take these one
by one.

While nobody doubts
the outcome of any election in Belarus, it is also pretty
uncontroversial that most Belarusians do support Lukashenko. 
The point is not whether Lukashenko would win, but only by how much
he would win?  The elections yesterday yielded the lowest
possible and acceptable result for Lukashenko: 80%. This figure
is really meaningless, all it shows is how good the Lukashenko regime
is at winning elections. This time, however, there appear to be
more protests than in the past and, unlike what happened in the past,
the protests are not limited to Minsk and they have now spread to
other cities. So while Lukashenko was never at risk of
officially losing the election, a maidan-like protest remains a clear
concern for him.

Pompeo in Belarus: only a coincidence, of course

But there is much more
to this story.

Following a meeting
between Lukashenko and Pompeo, the US will now open a (very big)
embassy in Minsk.  For years the West has been calling
Lukashenko all sorts of names, and now it is suddenly “all smiles”.

Is that really a
coincidence?

I very much doubt it.

But it even gets much
worse than that: the US is sending one of its most capable and
dangerous officials to subvert Belarus: I am referring to Jeffrey
Giauque, a State Department intelligence official with a long
track of successive destabilization missions.

Listen to him
introduce himself to the Belarusian people:

In fact, it is now
pretty obvious that the entire provocation with the Russian
“terrorists” was carefully crafted and implemented by a joint
US-Ukrainian.  Had the Ukie SBU not been so sloppy with how they
organized it all (it took the FSB less than 24 hours to get a full
and accurate picture of what had happened) this plan might have
succeeded.  In fact, it still might.

But blaming it all on
the US, the SBU and Lukashenko really does not tell the full story.

The truth is that
Belarus is a completely artificial state, much more artificial even
than the Ukraine, and it is a state which simply cannot survive by
itself.  Neither can it hope to survive forever on Russian aid. 
And while looking
at the roots of Ukrainian nationalism is important and
interesting, such an exercise is useless in the case of Belarus since
Belarusian nationalism is something truly a-historical and artificial
and which really has no foundation outside western ideological
dogmas.

While the Soviet
Union’s Marxist and generally russophobic ideology regime always
fostered the emergence of local nationalisms (and even created
previously non-existing “nationalities”), Belarusian nationalism
was something which never got much traction, which is hardly
surprising since any distinction between a Russian and a Belarusian
is much smaller than the differences amongst Russians who now live in
a very diverse and truly multi-ethnic society. Still, from the
point of view of the Party Nomenklatura
and their western curators, not splitting away Belarus from Russia
while such countries as the Ukraine or Kazakhstan declared their
independence was unthinkable, thus a kind of weird compromise was
reached which was supposed to reassure both the people of Russia and
those of Belarus. Some agreements were made, others were
endlessly negotiated about (especially any energy deals!) and what
eventually resulted from this all is this weird and artificial
statelet of only 10 million people. As for its leader, he
declared that Belarus will follow a “multi-vector” foreign policy
which I would summarize as follows: pump as much money out of Russia
as possible, while at the same time seeking support from the
AngloZionist Empire.

[Sidebar: yes, I know,
Lukashenko is called the “last dictator of Europe” and he is not
popular in the West.  My point is that his lack of popularity is
to be credited to the West, and not to him. Over and over
again, Lukashenko tried to get support (meaning “money”) from the
West and now Pompeo & Co. have apparently decided to make “their”
son of a bitch “our” son of a bitch. What I mean by that
Lukashenko was the textbook case of the “our son of a bitch”
phenomenon, but not for the West – for Russia.  I furthermore
believe that like all “sons of bitches” (including “theirs”
and “ours”) – Lukashenko has now turned into a liability for
Russia.]

There is another very
worrisome development taking place now: in this entire business the
Belarusian KGB was either hopelessly incompetent (which it ain’t!)
or penetrated by western agents.  I find the second explanation
much more likely.

If we now assume that
the Belarusian KGB has been penetrated and compromised, then this is
very bad news for Lukashenko who might find himself in the same
situation as, say, Nicolae Ceaușescu, who was betrayed by his own
secret services (we can also remember how many US/Israeli agents were
in high position around Bashar Assad until the war in Syria forced
them to pick a side).

Frankly, while the CIA
and the rest of them are not very good at some things, they are truly
world-class masters in the art of corrupting officials and this might
have already happened in Belarus.

Right now, there are
riots in Minsk and in other cities and while in the capital the riot
police has things mostly under control, there have already been cases
of riot cops running for their lives to avoid being lynched by the
mob. As of the time of writing this (Monday 21:50 UTC) the
Belarusian KGB has declared that they are hunting down the worst
agitators and rioters, but considering how easy it has been for the
Ukrainian SBU to trick (or, worse, infiltrate) the Belarusian KGB, I
am not feeling very reassured by this verbiage: special services are
here to take care of dangerous problems, not to make big statements.

Right now, the latest
we hear from the Belarusian KGB is that they prevented
the assassination of the main opposition figure Svetlana
Tikhanovskaya.  Heck, this might even be true, considering
that the (clueless) Tikhanovskaya would make a perfect “sacrificial
lamb” (and an terrible politician, should she ever be elected). But this also looks like some interests inside the Belarusian KGB are
courting Tikhanovskaya. Both versions are equally bad, I think.

How serious is all
this?

Very!

There are already
(false) rumors spread by Polish media about Lukashenko having fled
Belarus in his aircraft. This rumor is clearly designed to
create the (wrong) impression that Lukashenko is the next Ianukovich:
while I equally dislike both of these men, Lukashenko is a much
tougher man than Ianukovich ever was.

Furthermore, the kind
of media-campaign waged now by the western, Polish and Ukie media is
unprecedented in its magnitude and it will be very hard for the
regime to regain control of the country.

As for Lukashenko, he
now seems to have reversed his tune somehow: after accusing Russia of
treating Belarus not as a brother, but as a partner, now he says that
he spoke to Putin and got a 5 page document explaining it all, and
now he says that Russia and Belarus will be brothers after all.

Not very convincing,
to say the least.

Quite logically,
Lukashenko’s popularity in Russia, which was never that high to
begin with, is now rapidly degrading and many analysts who, in the
past, praised Lukashenko for his (supposedly) “firm” policy
towards the West are now openly voicing their disgust.  An
increasing number of Russians are now openly wondering with this
entire “supranational union state” concept.  As for
Lukashenko’s much vaunted “multi-vector policies” they look
like a banal case of trying to sit between two chairs.

It now appears pretty
obvious that the leaders of the Empire stopped hating Lukashenko only
long enough to give a short lived and semi-credible appearance of
benevolence; now they are already talking about reintroducing
sanctions on Belarus and on Lukashenko personally.

This is all extremely
dangerous for Russia for the following reasons:

1. Lukashenko
   is an absolutely terrible “our son of a bitch” (they always
   are!) to back and his latest antics have shown the Kremlin that
   Lukashenko is very much part of the problem, not of the solution.

2. If
   Lukashenko remains in power, it will be only thanks to his (mostly
   very effective) repressive apparatus which might be enough to
   silence the opposition, but not enough to make Lukashenko truly
   popular.

3. Lukashenko
   himself is clearly both dishonest and unprincipled.  He does
   not care one bit about Russia (or Belarus for that matter), he cares
   only about himself.  In other words, as long as he remains in
   power, Belarus will be a major concern for Russia.

4. If
   Lukashenko is overthrown, be it by a KGB plot or a Maidan-like
   violent insurrection, we can be pretty darn sure that whoever comes
   to power will be 1) vetted by the USA and 2) rabidly anti-Russian.

5. Belarus does not
   have much of an economic significance for Russia, but for security
   and, even more so, military reasons Belarus is absolutely vital to
   the Russian security

This last point needs
to be further clarified. Not only is Belarus located in a
strategically crucial location, the Belarussian armed forces are very
well trained and equipped (no comparison to the Ukie forces) and they
represent a major military asset for the Kremlin.  

There are
also Russian forces deployed in Belarus*. Finally, the contacts
between the Belarusian and Russian military are very friendly and
very deep.To have NATO take over Belarus would truly be a
major problem for Russia (one that she can deal with, but it would
require a major re-thinking of the threat from the West).

So where do we go from
here?

It seems to me that if
Putin does “more of the same” Russia risks seriously losing
Belarus which, at a time when the Ukrainian Banderastan is falling
apart, would really be a crying shame.  Right now, Russia needs
to contain the “Ukrainian infection” while, at the same time,
preparing an after-Lukashenko (before it is too late). Obviously, Lukashenko will not gracefully resign, so Russia needs to
find a tool in her toolkit to force him to do so.

Personally, I have
always believed that fully reincorporating Belarus into Russia would
not only solve the “Belarusian problem” but that it would also
solve the “Lukashenko problem”.  I am confident that Russia
has more than enough influence and resources in Belarus to force a
change. Yes, that would be both difficult and dangerous, but
not doing so could result in a much worse outcome.  Russia needs
to act.  Quickly and resolutely.

The Saker – [this
analysis was written for
the Unz review]

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================================

* Waar de Saker dat vandaan haalt zou ik niet weten, immers dit zou ongetwijfeld zijn aangehaald door de demonstranten in Wit-Rusland, waar men vandaag nog schande sprak over het vrijlaten van de 30 ongewapnede Russische veiligheidsagenten, die de Saker eerder aanhaalt in zijn verhaal….. Hij geeft daar verder ook geen bewijs voor….. Uitermate vreemd…… Ongetwijfeld zal het Wit-Russische leger af en aan militaire oefeningen houden met de Russische strijdkrachten, echter daar is op dit moment, noch de laatste paar maanden sprake van (geweest).

Zie ook: ‘Dear mister Putin pleas cut Russian ties with Belarus‘ (dom van mij, immers Wit-Rusland is van groot strategisch belang voor Rusland en de VS, ik had moeten inzetten op een breuk met Loekasjenko)

‘Helga Salemon ‘met zéééér wijze woorden’ over Loekasjenko en de verkiezingen in Wit-Rusland, met de nadruk op Rusland‘ (zie ook de links in dat bericht voor meer anti-Russische propaganda leugens van Salemon)