After forging an election and attacking the opposition, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has turned to Russia to maintain his grip over Belarus.
On Aug. 21, Lukashenko’s press service confirmed that Belarusian state television channels have hired Russian journalists to replace their local counterparts, who are currently on strike.
“I asked the Russians to give us two or three groups of journalists, that’s six or nine people, from their most developed television channels,” Lukashenko said, according to his press service.
On Aug. 18, Belarusian journalists working for the state-owned Belarus Television and Radio Company announced an indefinite strike. Earlier, several anchors had resigned, saying that they cannot continue lying to the people.
In one video filmed on Aug. 16 that went viral online, a Belarusian panned from a television screen, where the state-owned ONT channel was showing an old concert by a Russian pop star, to the street outside, where more than 200,000 people had gathered to protest against election fraud and police brutality.
The protests were the largest public gatherings in independent Belarus’ history, but state-owned channels didn’t cover them, showing the less crowded pro-Lukashenko rallies instead.
Protests erupted in Belarus on Aug. 9 after preliminary results from the country’s presidential election declared Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for 26 years, the winner with over 80% of the vote. Unofficial exit polls suggested that opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya had won with a similar percentage.
Several electoral commissions that reportedly did not engage in fraud posted results showing Tikhanovskaya receiving over 70% of the vote on average.
Read More: Lukashenko falsifies election, declares war on Belarusians
Belarusians protesting the alleged fraud have faced unprecedented brutality from the local riot police and special forces of the Belarusian security agency, still called the KGB. To suppress the protests, riot police fired rubber bullets, hurled flash grenades and used water cannons.
At least four people were killed by the police, hundreds were injured and over 7,000 were detained. Those detained were held for days without official charges and faced torture in captivity.
State-owned television channels have largely declined to report on police brutality and avoided showing the protests. They have also been active in spreading conspiracy theories promoted by Lukashenko.
On Aug. 14, the state-owned Belarus 1 channel showed the alleged arrest of a man who the channel claimed was an organizer of mass protests.
In his supposed apartment, the state-owned channel showed a card emblazoned with the words “Security Service of Ukraine,” a photo of World War II-era Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera and a Halloween mask of cartoon character Shrek.
Lukashenko didn’t specify which Russian television channel provided its journalists to Belarus, but there are few doubts that the journalists previously worked for Russian state-owned channels not shy about using propaganda to support the local regime.
On Aug. 19, Konstantin Pridybailo, who works for the state-owned Russia Today propaganda network, was seen entering the Belarus Television and Radio Company headquarters. He later denied that he would work for a Belarusian television channel.
However, local journalists have cited unconfirmed information that it was in fact Russia Today which provided its journalists for Lukashenko’s regime.
On Aug. 14, Margarita Simonyan, chief editor of Russia Today, called on Russia to invade Belarus to restore order as anti-government protests raged across the country.
This is not the first time Russia has been accused of intervening in Belarus to support Lukashenko.
On Aug. 16, the independent Russian news site Fontanka published photos of Russian riot police trucks moving from St. Petersburg toward Belarus. Soon, multiple amateur videos of similar vehicles moving toward the border were published online.
In the videos, at least 30 police trucks without insignia and vehicle registration plates can be seen on the move. They were last filmed in Russia 43 kilometers east of the Belarusian border.
