A very serious crisis in Belarus - Saker Archived Message Posted by Tomski on August 11, 2020, 3:06 pm https://thesaker.is/putin-and-russia-are-facing-a-very-serious-crisis-in-belarus/ 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: Russia would never even consider using force or illegal covert operations against Lukashenko and/or Belarus 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. 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: Etc. Message Thread: A very serious crisis in Belarus - Saker - Tomski August 11, 2020, 3:06 pm Thanks. Nm - Shyaku August 12, 2020, 6:29 pm   Searching