Putin and Russia are facing a very serious crisis in Belarus (Updated!)

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.
• Lukashenko 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 Belarussian 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 frequent problems, and even crises, between Moscow and Minsk.  Russia poured immense sums of money to keep Belarussian 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 were to be successful in taking control of the country, this would be a major strategic threat for Russian security.

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

Now let me summarize what just happened.

The Belarussian 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 Belarussian 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 Belarussian 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 Belarussian firm to provide security in various countries (Sudan and Venezuela are 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 made: 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 Belarussian 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 Belarussians and Lukashenko himself started to act really strangely.

The first logical step for the Belarussian authorities should have been Lukashenko calling Putin and asking for an explanation.  Alternatively, the head of the Belarussian KGB could have called the head of the FSB and ask him for clarifications.  But, instead of doing that, the Belarussian 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 journalists, 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 Belarussian 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 Belarussians?

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

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

Reason three: The Belarussian 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 Belarussians 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 appears 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.

Verminous neocon 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 Belarussian 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 task force.  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 Belarussian 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 always fostered the emergence of local nationalisms (and even created previously non-existing “nationalities”), Belarussian nationalism was something which never got much traction, which is hardly surprising since any distinction between a Russian and a Belarussian 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 seek support from the AngloZionist Empire.

There is another very worrisome development taking place now: in this entire business the Belarussian 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 Belarussian 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 Belarussian 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 Belarussian 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 Belarussian 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 Belarussian 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 personal 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 [mere business] 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.

This is what Lukashenko’s “multivector” policy looks like…

 

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. 

   Nepotist Alexander Lukashenko, with his youngest son Nikolai, during a parade marking Independence Day in Minsk, Belarus, Sunday, July 3, 2011.

   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 Belarussian 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 “Belarussian 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

Dateline:  12 Aug 2020
A quick update on the events in Belarus:

To make a long story short, two major developments have happened:

1. My guess is that by now Lukashenko has figured (again) that the West wants him dead AND he has figured out that he has been conned by the Ukie SBU and, most likely, elements inside his own KGB.
2. The Belarusian security forces (riot police and KGB) have ruthlessly cracked down on the opposition and right now they seem to be in control of the situation.

I base my first conclusion on the clear and sudden change of tone of Lukashenko who, yet again, praises Putin and Russia and who is now playing nice hoping that the Kremlin will forget what just happened (it won’t).

As for the second conclusion, now that the Internet has been reopened (Belarus and the West accuse each other of having disconnected it), there is a lot of media (video and images) coming out of Minsk and other Belarusian  cities and it appears that the following has happened:

While many people did sincerely and peacefully protest, a number of criminal elements were recruited (for US dollars) and they instantly attacked the security forces with great skill and violence: cops were lynched, some were shot (at least one), agent provocateurs even ran over cops with their cars, one guy was caught with 10’000 USD in the streets during the riots and his explanation was “this is my money” (as if anybody in his right mind would carry large sums of money in the midst of riots), others were caught with knives, baseball bats, Molotov cocktails, radios, flash-bang grenades (from Poland), fireworks, etc. etc. etc.  Many of the hardcore rioters have multiple criminal convictions in the past and were well known by the authorities.  Last but not least, some of these rioters had Ukie-style Nazi tattoos all over their bodies.  What else is new….?

Predictably, the riot police retaliated in kind and started beating the crap out of anybody breaking the law and, alas, also beating the crap left and right of people who were not doing anything illegal (including severely beaten up journos, including Russian ones).

It appears that for the time being, the Belarusian KGB has the upper hand and that many of the subversives which were caught by the KGB were run by the Ukraine and Poland.

As for the main opposition figure (officially, she got 10% of the vote), she has now left for Lithuania (probably because her husband’s curators are located there).

Conclusion:

While the plot to create a major crisis between Belarus and Russia has been foiled thanks to the Russian FSB (молодцы ребята!), the plot to overthrow Lukashenko is still ongoing and might very well succeed.  For one thing, people are really angry at the violence of the Belarusian cops.  Second, the Belarusian economy is hurting and Russia cannot forever “carry” Belarus on her back. Third Lukashenko has been in power for way too long and for all this time he “sat between two chairs” – this has to change and it will change, the only question is will it change for the better or for the worse?

At the very least, Moscow should now demand that Lukashenko fire his Russia-hating foreign Minister, Makei, and the head of the Belarusian KGB, Vakulchik, (if these men had any sense of honor, they would immediately resign by themselves but, clearly, they do not…) and renew the talks on fully uniting Belarus and Russia.

As for Lukashenko, he has to put his actions where his mouth is and take retaliatory sanctions against the USA and the EU.  Now, obviously, Belarus has no economic levers to use against the West, but what Minsk could and SHOULD do is to reduce the size of all the key diplomatic missions, embassies, consulates, etc. from the worst offending countries: USA, the Ukraine and Poland.  This would not only be fair, it would be prudent as it is 100% clear now that these countries stand behind the current crisis and they will do all they can to turn a (comparatively heavenly) Belarus into the kind of Banderastan they turned the long-suffering Ukraine into.

Finally, it appears that the opposition (law abiding and other) are now taking stock of their apparent initial failure and are regrouping for the upcoming week-end.

At this point, the AngloZionist Empire does not need to pretend to like Lukashenko anymore (that plan has failed), so they can do something which they are very good at: provoke more and more violence, forcing the state to resort to violent repression (that is the “action is in the reaction” tactic) and then all that is needed is what they have successfully done in Riga, Vilnius, Moscow (1993), Kiev, Aleppo and many other places: send in professional snipers to shoot at BOTH sides, thereby creating a civil war.

Will the Belarusian KGB be capable of intercepting all the teams which will probably be sent in?

Maybe.  The Belarusian KGB is, unlike its Ukie SBU counterpart, mostly formed of competent professionals who had all the time needed to carefully study what happened in the Ukraine, how it happened and why it happened.  So they can probably keep control of the situation for a while longer, but it is anybody’s guess for how long.

Personally, I can only repeat that I have zero confidence in Lukashenko and I don’t believe that an independent Belarus is viable.  The only solution I see is a full integration of Belarus into Russia.

—The Saker

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