As Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko prepares to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Sept. 14, he has intensified the crackdown on protests in Minsk.
Seeking to crush the opposition that won’t recognize his far-fetched victory in the Aug. 9 election, Lukashenko’s regime has detained or deported many opposition leaders.
In one of the latest moves, authorities abducted opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova in downtown Minsk on Sept. 7, in what was later revealed to be a failed forced deportation attempt. When she ripped up her passport to escape deportation, Kolesnikova was put in jail and charged with treason.
On Sept. 9, a prominent opposition lawyer, Maksim Znak, was also jailed and charged with treason.
Meanwhile, writer and Nobel Prize recipient Svetlana Alexievich was questioned by the authorities. Alexievich is the last member of the presidium of the Coordination Council, an opposition-sanctioned body, who remains free and in Minsk. The others has either been deported or jailed.
Since the Aug. 9 presidential election, which was deemed unfair by the international community, over 100,000 people have been taking to the streets of Minsk each Sunday, demanding a fair election and the release of the regime’s political prisoners.
Protesters are frequently detained and beaten by the police. But this week, the violence intensified: Unidentified men with batons began accompanying riot police in attacks on protesters.
Since Sept. 5, over 1,000 people were detained by the police in Belarus, bringing the total number of people who were jailed in the past month to up to 10,000.
Deporting opposition leaders to Ukraine
The past week has seen a gradual increase in attacks on Belarusian opposition leaders.
Being attacked by masked men, pulled into a tinted minibus without license plates and disappearing for hours, sometimes days, is becoming the new normal in Belarus.
Read More: Lukashenko falsifies election, declares war on Belarusians
But what happened to Kolesnikova and two Coordination Council members, press secretary Anton Rodnenkov and executive secretary Ivan Kravtsov, is reminiscent of something from a crime drama.
The three were abducted in downtown Minsk on Sept. 7.
That same day, over 30 special service officers escorted them to the neutral strip between Belarus and Ukraine, shoved them into Kravtsov’s BMW and ordered them to leave the country.
However, the plan to get rid of Kolesnikova failed when she ripped up her passport, climbed out the car window and refused to leave Belarus. After that, she was brought back and jailed.
Kolesnikova’s representatives filed an official complaint to prosecutors, stating that she was threatened with being deported “in pieces” if she didn’t willingly leave the country.
Unlike Kolesnikova, Rodnenkov and Kravtsov left Belarus for Ukraine and were able to tell the media what happened to them and Kolesnikova after they were abducted.
Members of the Belarus opposition Coordination Council Ivan Kravtsov (L), Mariya Kolesnikova (C), and Anton Rodnenkov (R) on Aug. 14, 2020, in Minsk (Photo courtesy Maria Kalesnikava/Facebook) (Pavel Kritchko)
“They failed the operation. It turned into a public disaster for the Belarusian authorities,” said Rodnenkov during a press conference in Kyiv.
Illegally deporting opposition leaders isn’t a new practice for Belarus.
On Sept. 2, diplomat and former Minister of Culture Pavel Latushko left Belarus after being threatened by the Belarusian KGB, while opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who challenged Lukashenko at the ballot, was dragged to the Lithuanian border and forced out of the country on Aug. 11.
“God forbid you be faced with such a choice as I have faced,” she said after being forced out, which was perceived as a hint that the KGB was threatening to hurt her family.
Read More: Belarus protests turn violent, Tikhanovskaya flees country under pressure
After a month of protests, Lukashenko isn’t planning on backing down.
On Sept. 10, Lukashenko introduced the country’s new prosecutor general, Andriy Shved.
“I don’t see the (strong) prosecutor’s activity that is necessary for this given period,” said Lukashenko during Shved’s appointment.
Yet, the Belarus prosecution has been keen on appeasing Lukashenko.
After a failed deportation plot, Kolesnikova, her lawyer Ilya Saley and Znak are being held behind bars and are charged with treason for participating in the Coordination Council, which officially declared its goal to be a peaceful transition of power from Lukashenko to a democratically-elected president.
On the same day, Alexievich reported that masked men were trying to break into her apartment and asked the public for support. Ambassadors of seven European Union countries in Belarus briefly stood watch at her place to protect her.
Unlike Alexievich, not all people in opposition to the regime can count on protection.
Starting from Sept. 7, masked men with batons accompanied riot police in what appears to be a hunt for protesters.
In one instance caught on video, over 10 unidentified individuals stormed a café where protesters were hiding from the police. The men broke the door and glass windows of the café and began beating those inside.
Grasping for Russia’s attention
Meanwhile, Russia continues to be a player in Belarus’ domestic affairs.
Lukashenko welcomes Russian journalists to work for Belarusian TV channels, gives Russian channels exclusive interviews and promotes the idea of further integration between Russia and Belarus.
Lukashenko is expected to meet with Putin on Sept. 14 in Moscow, with Russian support for the plunging Belarus economy cited as the key topic of the visit.
“Russian President and I began to discuss the so-called roadmaps in order to adapt to the current conditions and develop new ways of further integration (between the two countries),” said Lukashenko in a Sept. 8 interview with Russian state media.
Lukashenko also repeated his earlier statement hinting that Russia must be interested in maintaining his regime.
“If Belarus collapses today, Russia will be next,” he said.
Earlier, Putin told Russian state-owned media that his country is ready to intervene in Belarus to keep Lukashenko in power.
“Alexander (Lukashenko) asked me to form a certain reserve of law enforcement officers and I did,” said Putin in an interview with the Russia 1 news channel on Aug. 27.
“But we also agreed that they won’t be used until the situation gets out of control,” he added.
According to Putin, the reserve won’t be used as long as protesters don’t storm government buildings.
Russia has been actively supporting Lukashenko’s regime.
On Sept. 10, the annual joint Belarus-Russian military drills began in Brest Oblast, near the Polish border.
European response
The European Union has been slow to counter Russian influence in Belarus.
EU sanctions against the Belarusian authorities responsible for forging elections and torturing protesters have been blocked by Cyprus.
The country has warned EU members that it won’t approve sanctions against dozens of officials in Belarus unless member states agree to punish Turkey following its drilling activities in the Mediterranean Sea, Bloomberg reported on Sept. 10.
EU decisions on sanctions must be taken unanimously by all 27 member states.
While the European Union has shown a lack of unity, Belarus’ neighbors have been actively throwing support behind the country’s opposition.
On Sept. 10, Lithuania called on the international community to declare Tikhanovskaya and the Coordination Council as “the only legitimate representatives of the Belarus people for holding new democratic presidential and parliamentary elections.”
The Lithuanian parliament also called on the international community to consider any actions conducted by Lukashenko as illegitimate.
New international agreements with Russia which restrict the sovereignty of Belarusian people are a de facto annexation of the country, the report reads.
