In the depths of eastern Europe’s bitter winter, Polish troops fired tear gas and thousands of litres of icy water from vehicle-mounted cannon brought up to the border with Belarus where hundreds of refugees from the Middle East were trying to get into civilised Europe via Poland. The refugees, already trembling with cold in freezing temperatures, were soaked to the skin. Their plight was indescribable. And the U.S.-Nato military alliance reacted to the humanitarian crisis by increasing the level of its confrontation with Russia.

Secretary General Stoltenberg held a meeting of European defence ministers and declared “We stand in solidarity with Poland and other affected allies” while the U.S. official outlet, Radio Free Europe (annual government allocation $124 million) reported in justification of Poland’s water-cannon barrage that “The impact of a stone thrown by a migrant was so forceful that one officer’s helmet was damaged, police said following similar clashes in recent days.”

Make no mistake, the ruler of Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenko, is a malevolent lamebrain whose approach to human rights and society is entirely negative. But at least he didn’t order his troops to spray freezing water over unarmed civilians whose suffering should have attracted sympathy and energetic assistance rather than lip-smacking publicity statements from such as Lithuania’s foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, who declared on November 15 that “it is very likely that Ukraine could be attacked while we are dealing with the situation on the Polish, Lithuanian and Belarusian border.” But they are not “dealing” with any situation as it effects the iced-over refugees, because this would be much less attractive than trying to persuade the outside world to believe that the whole thing has been contrived by Russia in order to invade Ukraine.

U.S. News and World Report weighed in to the fantasy of Russian involvement by headlining that “Russia Deploys Commandos to Belarus as Migrant Crisis, Ukraine Tensions Spark Western Fears” and went on to assert that “Russia has orchestrated the deployment of special operations troops to the northern border of Belarus to see how sudden surges of migrants to the area are straining neighbouring NATO countries’ ability to respond, a source familiar with local governments’ assessments tells U.S. News — the latest development in Moscow’s troubling campaign of destabilization against Europe. It was not immediately clear whether the commandos came from Russia or from Belarus, says former U.S. Army Europe Commander Ben Hodges, who says senior officials in Latvia believe the deployments are at least for reconnaissance, if not some other form of nefarious distraction.” The story is so absurd it was not carried by the western mainstream media, and even the likes of the New York Times confined themselves to reporting such snippets as “As the Polish government pressed ahead with legislation that would extend the country’s most sweeping state of emergency in modern history, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told the German publication Bild that ‘by defending the Polish border, we defend the whole of Europe’.”

Presumably Poland’s prime minister meant that he and his water-cannon troops are defending Western Europe against an invasion by what Reuters stated on November 16 are “Up to 4,000 migrants, mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan” [emphasis added] who “are now waiting in freezing forests on what is not only Poland’s frontier but is also the external border of the EU and NATO, the Western military alliance.”

It is far from surprising that Poland is trying to get as much as it can out of this dreadful humanitarian crisis because Warsaw is trying to deflect Europe’s attention from its ongoing swing to ultra-right wing policies, including government control of the judiciary. As the BBC told us on October 27, before the refugee emergency, Poland rejected the primacy of EU law, which action was described by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as “a direct challenge to the unity of the European legal order.”

While Poland’s rebuff of the EU is a serious matter, the other thing that Warsaw wants to keep quiet is the coalmining crisis on Poland’s border with the Czech Republic. As with the Polish refusal to stand by legal rules it had undertaken to follow by joining the EU, it is now refusing to phase out coal power as agreed at the COP26 climate conference. On November 4 it was reported that “Poland has joined a coalition of 190 countries and organisations in a new commitment to phase out coal power in line with the science of the Paris Climate Agreement” — but the following day there was “clarification” that “The Polish government has confirmed it still intends to produce energy from coal until 2049 despite signing a declaration at COP26 that some hoped meant Warsaw would part with the fossil fuel earlier.”

This is in line with the account in the Guardian in September that despite an EU Court of Justice directive to cease operations at the opencast coalmine at Turów, adjacent to the Czech Republic, the Polish government announced it would continue mining “arguing that its suspension would put the country’s energy security at risk. The mine fuels a power station providing about 7% of the country’s electricity supply. It employs about 3,600 people.”

President Lukashenko is no humanitarian, and has been using the refugees cynically as a political tool in his domestic and international antics, but the fact remains that this tool was promptly seized by people such as Nato’s Stoltenberg and his acolytes in order to hype a non-existent Russian threat to Ukraine. The chief of Britain’s armed forces, General Carter, actually declared that Russia is in a “hybrid playbook where you link disinformation to destabilisation and the idea of pushing migrants on to the European Union’s borders is a classic example of that sort of thing”. He followed this gibberish by saying it was “most likely” that the Belarus and Ukraine border situations were “classic distraction” by the Russian government of the type that had been going on “for years and years and years”.

What Carter and Stoltenberg and their directors in the Pentagon refuse to acknowledge is that the Poland-Belarus “border distraction” was caused by pitiable, wretched refugees who had fled countries that had been invaded (Afghanistan and Iraq) or bombed and rocketed to devastation (Libya) by U.S./Nato forces. Further, the situation along the Russia-Ukraine border has nothing whatever to do with the U.S.-Nato military grouping which continues to search for some sort of justification for its existence.

The “Strategic Partnership” between the U.S. and Ukraine is an uncompromising agreement that signals western preparedness to ramp up confrontation with Russia, and in one of its signals of aggression it claims there are “humanitarian and security costs of Russia’s occupation of Crimea” which is a risible allegation. In spite of energetic efforts on the part of agencies of the U.S.-Nato military alliance, there has been no uprising in Crimea, the majority of whose residents are entirely supportive of Russia (as indicated in a referendum) and know only too well that they would suffer enormously under a Kyev regime. As to humanitarian and security “costs”, it must be disappointing for the West’s anti-Moscow clique that Russian troops aren’t drenching unarmed Crimean citizens with tear gas and ice-cold water or that its government isn’t extending operation of health-hazarding open-cast coalmines contrary to international agreements.

Coal production and refugees are only two of the many economic and social problems in Europe, and the EU is trying its best to solve them, with moderate success. But it would achieve much more if it could persuade the Pentagon to cease its confrontational policies and encourage the Washington administration to come to the conference table. Refugees must be treated with compassion and coal-mining phased out. And conflict must be avoided.

We have all seen the rather strange cinematic clashes at the Polish border in which migrants, supposedly appearing due to blowback in Afghanistan, are trying to storm the eastern front of the European Union. Both the Western and Russian news media have been mostly focussing on the details that make up the facade of this issue rather than on the greater context of what this event means to today’s Poland.

The current narrative that Lukashenko is petty and wants revenge against the EU for trying to organize a “Maidan” in his backyard is very naive. This isn’t to say that he or any powerful leader are above allowing their pride to affect their actions. Vengeance could be at play, but sending a few hundred migrants into the West from the woods is a very pathetic form of revenge indeed, that wouldn’t satisfy the ego of even the most narcissistic bean-counter president.

Image: Protestors in Minsk unaware that they are doing a fantastic job of ensuring permanent integration with Russia.

The attempted Color Revolution against Lukashenko ended his longtime balancing act, forcing Belarus to look east and finally get about 20 years of bureaucratic stagnation over with in terms of creating the “Union State” with Russia. The final plan for this project was signed on “People’s Unity Day” 2021. No matter what the Mainstream Media may tell you there are no true dictators. Just because orders are issued, that doesn’t mean they will be followed, especially in countries with large Russian-speaking populations. Lukashenko probably wants to make sure that with actions like downing of an airplane to arrest one “dissident” or allowing this new border strife to happen (if they indeed are allowing it to happen) will only serve to cut off any last strands binding Belarus to the EU.

Just because Lukashenko and Putin made some paperwork does not mean the Union State concept cannot be aborted or reversed. Long story short, whether the Belarussian government had anything to do with the migrants getting to the border, this situation is driving the East/West rift further apart quickly and that certainly works in the interests of a rising Russian civilization.

On the other hand, Poland finds itself in the strange position of being the guardians of a European civilization that despises itself. Even if Lukashenko is the mastermind behind this crisis, it is the “Liberalness” and nanny states of Germany, France and Scandinavia that are the real reason these foreign people want to jump over barbed wire fences to live in countries they passionately despise. Poland is actually being put in a tough spot, not by Belarus but by Brussels as we cannot forget that if it were not for EU bureaucracy and a bizarre interpretation of the concept of “Human Rights” the Poles could have settled this problem in a more blunt message-sending manner. Using cutesy poo water cannons to annoy foreigners from storming the border, some of them armed with melee weapons, shows just how straightjacketed Warsaw really is.

We also cannot forget that officially this angry mob came thousands of miles to escape a post American Afghanistan. America did save Poland from the numerous culturally destructive downsides of Communism (state enforced atheism being one of them) but the gift of American Liberalism is proving to be just as destructive, but in a different way. Perhaps Poland’s greatest weakness is having the terrible geography of being right on the open highway between Russian and Western Civilizations. Poland is always forced to be part of some alliance in order to survive. This fact of life may be unchangeable, i.e. this nation will always be stuck being part of an alliance, but whom Poland is going to be allied with could be the real question that is now up for debate as serving Moscow during the Cold War and Washington till present have both been losing options for Warsaw.

Image: The quiet before the storm.

This madness in the woods around the borderlands is yet another call for the Visegrad nations (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia with the potential for others to join) to become their own entity outside of the EU. Within the Brussels framework they are not only losers destined to send their young people to London and Paris to clean toilets, but are also bound to tolerate supposedly “European Values” that they consider to be completely illogical, foreign and Anti-European. If there was an East and West EU perhaps everyone could be ideologically happy, but as it stands today most of what is considered Central Europe is held ideologically captive by the degenerated intellectual offspring of the Anglo-French Enlightenment.

The nations considered traditionally “Western” have dropped the “European” ball and it is time for the Poles, Hungarians and whoever else is floating around Central Europe with an old school attitude, to pick it up. Perhaps now is the time for Poland to stop seeing itself as the protectors of a Europe that does not want to save itself. Poland’s idea that it is saving the greatest society on Earth from being tainted by Mongol-Russian hordes is obsolete at best. Perhaps Warsaw should just declare themselves the new epicenter of Europe. Why not? The West has begun to hate its Europeanness anyways.

Within the framework of a Visegrad Supernation Poland would neither be the victim of EU ideological madness or a potential Russian threat that they are sure is coming. Poland is always going to be stuck as part of some alliance but at least it should finally become an equal partner along with other weaker nations that could make up a mighty block. This madness at the border should be a wake up call or at least a mirror for Poland to look into to see that it is again part of a destructive alliance and things need to change.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has made a stark accusation against Belarus and Russia, claiming they are weaponizing the migration problem on the border with Poland. This is a cowardly move to divert blame. It is also recklessly escalating confrontation.

Speaking to media after a White House meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden, the top European Union official said the task at hand was about “protecting our democracies” from “cynical hybrid warfare”. She explicitly accused Belarus of weaponizing migration and destabilizing the EU.

Von der Leyen did not mention Russia by name but her comments implied Moscow was colluding with its neighbor and ally to create geopolitical tensions by facilitating an influx of migrants into Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. She also cited unproven previous allegations of election interference and cyberattacks attributed to Russia as precedents for the current “hybrid warfare” with migration.

Other EU leaders have been more openly provocative. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki this week claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “masterminding” a plot in cahoots with Belarus to flood the EU with migrants. This is a rehash of an old claim dating back to 2015 when more than one million refugees entered the EU. That mass movement was claimed then to be “hybrid warfare” orchestrated by Putin to wreak havoc in the bloc.

Such a claim is based on irrational Russophobia that does not stand up with facts, then or now.

Most of the refugees stranded at the Belarus borders with Poland and the Baltic states are from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. This was the same as in 2015. The common denominator is that these three source countries have been subjected to war and aggression by the United States and its European NATO allies over two decades. That is the root of the phenomenal migration to Europe. One can also factor in the NATO destruction of Libya in 2011 as another gateway for mass migration.

The EU is weaponizing the issue by distorting the cause: alleging that it is Russia and Belarus creating the human tide when in fact it has been illegal imperialist wars and regime-change operations conducted by the United States and the Europeans.

It is Poland and EU members that are deploying thousands of troops, tanks and barbed wire along the border with Belarus. This is an abomination of supposed “European values” and respect for international laws of asylum. The fiasco of Brussels financially supporting the construction of barbed wire fences is an international disgrace. Pointedly, this rush to ring-fence Europe comes exactly 32 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Filippo Grandi, the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees, this week condemned the EU’s xenophobic, militarized response to people seeking asylum.

The heavy-handed EU response is way out of proportion to the actual numbers involved. It is estimated that some 8,000 people have crossed over the Belarusian border into the European Union this year.

In 2015, the influx of an estimated one million refugees into Europe from U.S.-led wars in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia provoked an existential political crisis for the European Union. Eastern European member states like Poland and Hungary refused to share quotas for resettling asylum seekers. Germany took on a disproportionate share under Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “open door” policy. That policy had huge negative repercussions for the entire bloc.

It led to bitter tensions between member states and within states. The rise of populist anti-EU political parties was largely driven by a perception of foreign migrants inundating societies.

The EU desperately wants to avoid a repetition of that internal political crisis. Thus it is moving swiftly to make Poland and the Baltic states the “line of defense”. This explains the sudden militarization of border controls with Belarus.

The EU is drawing up another round of economic sanctions against Belarus next week, accusing its President Alexander Lukashenko of “gangsterism” and “human trafficking”. The possible imposition of sanctions on Russian airlines is also being mulled on the back of allegations that Moscow is colluding with Minsk in pushing migrants towards the EU. This is a reckless escalation of tensions.

Russia has flatly rejected any such allegations. Moscow says the EU needs to talk directly with Minsk to resolve the problem. One idea proposed by the Kremlin is for Brussels to provide financial aid to Belarus to implement a rational system of asylum application and resettlement. But the suspicion is that that is the last thing the EU wants to do. It simply wants to block any migration to avoid internal political strife. To do that, it needs to blockade Belarus. That blockade is having a deleterious impact on the economy of Belarus from normal border crossings for trade and haulage being stymied.

The underlying problem also goes back partly to the EU’s hostile policy towards Belarus. Brussels has controversially interfered in Belarus, along with the United States, in claiming that its presidential election last year was a sham. The EU refuses to recognize the re-election of Lukashenko and has slapped several rounds of sanctions on the country while claiming that an exiled opposition candidate is the real winner.

The Belarus government says it can’t afford to accommodate refugees coming through its territory en route to their desired destination of the European Union. Given the background hostility of the EU towards Belarus, it is understandable if Minsk is not exactly overseeing border controls. It’s a kind of “screw you” gesture to the European bloc for its interference in Belarus’ political affairs. Von der Leyen and other officials are going further by claiming that Minsk is deliberately organizing flights of refugees from various Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt, Jordan, United Arab Emirates.

Under international law, the EU is obliged to receive asylum seekers. The European governments have created millions of displaced people from their criminal wars and machinations along with the United States. But Brussels is shirking its legal obligations in order to avoid internal tensions with member states over immigration and populist opposition to capitalist corporate-controlled Europe. But by weaponizing the matter, the EU is recklessly winding up tensions with Belarus and Russia. The culprit is Europe’s moral and political cowardice to live up to its responsibilities by seeking to shift the blame on to others.

By Alan MACLEOD

Quietly, the U.S. national security state is turning up the heat on Belarus, hoping that the ex-Soviet country of 9 million will be the next casualty of its regime-change agenda. This sentiment was made clear in President Joe Biden’s recent speech at the United Nations General Assembly. Biden announced that the U.S. would pursue “relentless diplomacy” finding “new ways of lifting people up around the world, of renewing and defending democracy.” The 46th president was explicit in whom he meant by this: “The democratic world is everywhere. It lives in the anti-corruption activists, the human rights defenders, the journalists, the peace protestors on the frontlines of this struggle in Belarus, Burma, Syria, Cuba [and] Venezuela,” he said, putting Belarus first on the list of states in desperate need of a change in government.

This builds on the back of previous statements the administration has released. In June, a joint announcement by the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom and the European Union essentially pronounced the death penalty on the Lukashenko government, in power since 1994. “We are committed to support the long-suppressed democratic aspirations of the people of Belarus and we stand together to impose costs on the regime for its blatant disregard of international commitments,” they wrote, as they announced new sanctions.

A “modest but significant contribution”

Covertly, Washington is taking far more wide-ranging action. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is spending millions of dollars yearly on Belarus and has 40 active projects inside the state, all with the same goal of overthrowing Alexander Lukashenko and replacing him with a more U.S.-friendly president. Although not a single individual or organization is named, it is clear from the scant public information it reveals that Washington is focusing on three areas: training activists and civil-society organizations in non-violent regime-change tactics; funding anti-government media; and bankrolling election-monitoring groups.

Earlier this year, on a Zoom meeting infiltrated by activists and released to the public, the NED’s senior Europe Program officer, Nina Ognianova, boasted that the groups leading the nationwide demonstrations against Lukashenko last year — actions that made worldwide headlines — were trained by her organization. “We don’t think that this movement that is so impressive and so inspiring came out of nowhere — that it just happened overnight,” she said, noting that the NED had made a “modest but significant contribution” to the protests.

On the same call, NED President Carl Gershman added that “we support many, many groups and we have a very, very active program throughout the country, and many of the groups obviously have their partners in exile.” Gershman also boasted that the Belarusian government was powerless to intervene and stop them: “We’re not like Freedom House or NDI [the National Democratic Institute] and the IRI [International Republican Institute]; we don’t have offices. So if we’re not there, they can’t kick us out.”

The NED was set up by the Reagan administration as a front group for the CIA, to continue the agency’s work in destabilizing other countries. “It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the CIA,” Gershman said, explaining its creation. Another NED founder, Allen Weinstein, was perhaps even more blunt: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,” he told The Washington Post.

Belarusians are largely ignorant that this is going on beneath the surface. A poll taken by the NED’s sister organization USAID found that around two-thirds of the public were unaware of the actions of any NGOs inside their country, let alone where their funding came from.

The chosen one

The U.S. and Europe have not only decided Lukashenko must go, but have even agreed on his replacement. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a 39-year-old former schoolteacher and wife of anti-government activist Sergei Tikhanovsky, is the D.C. establishment’s clear candidate of choice. Described almost universally in corporate media as a pro-democracy activist, Tsikhanouskaya emerged from obscurity last year after her husband was barred from standing in the 2020 elections. Sergei is currently on trial for his role in organizing the nationwide demonstrations last year, an event the government sees as a coup attempt.

The government reportedly detained tens of thousands of people, and it was this heavy-handed response that added fuel to the flames of protests, turning them into a demonstration against political repression.

If convicted, Tikhanovsky faces up to 15 years in prison. Sviatlana ran in his stead, officially winning 10% of the national vote (although she maintains that she actually won an overwhelming victory and that the contest was rigged). In recent months, she has been doing the rounds in the West, meeting with foreign leaders in an attempt to convince them to support her. In July, she traveled to Washington for a meeting with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who conveyed the U.S.’ “respect for the courage and determination of the opposition” in Belarus.

Later that month, Tsikhanouskaya received what she was looking for: an endorsement from the president of the United States. After an in-depth meeting with Joe Biden, he promoted her as the true leader of her country. “The United States stands with the people of Belarus in their quest for democracy and universal human rights,” he said in a statement. She also received NATO’s blessing, meeting with senior figures from its think tank, the Atlantic Council, on several occasions.

At a recent event with the Council on Foreign Relations, Tsikhanouskaya made it clear that she was dependent on foreign support to continue her campaign. “We don’t have a lot of space inside the country. That’s why we are so [grateful for a large] amount of help from outside,” she said, telling the audience of business figures, state officials and media personalities that she and they “shar[ed] common values.” Perhaps the clearest indication that she had won the favor of the Western establishment were the rumors of a Nobel Peace Prize. At the time of its awarding, she was equal third with the bookmarkers, but ultimately lost out to journalists Dmitry Muratov and Maria Ressa.

I was honored to meet with @Tsihanouskaya at the White House this morning. The United States stands with the people of Belarus in their quest for democracy and universal human rights. pic.twitter.com/SdR6w4IBNZ

— President Biden (@POTUS) July 28, 2021

Despite the official endorsements, there are strong indications that Tsikhanouskaya enjoys little public support in Belarus and that her position is largely buoyed by foreign backing. A study conducted by Chatham House and the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) found that only 10% of Belarusians believed she would be a good president (as opposed to 25% for Lukashenko). Both Chatham House and RUSI are directly funded by NATO and its member states like the U.S., and both have previously advocated for regime change in Belarus.

More worryingly, Tsikhanouskaya appears to be among the least trusted and most disliked people in the entire country, the poll finding that even among people who supported the 2020 protests her trustworthiness score is negative.

Furthermore, the poll was carried out by an organization that makes blatantly clear throughout the report that it wants Lukashenko overthrown, and was conducted largely online, among tech-savvy, younger Belarusians in large cities — all groups that trend heavily towards being pro-protest and anti-Lukashenko. As such, the survey could barely have been designed any more favorably for Tsikhanouskaya. That even under these circumstances her popularity is so low is telling. Moreover, the polling was carried out before she began touring the West, asking for more crippling economic sanctions on her own country.

Washington’s woman

Why, then, has the West decided to champion her, and not other opposition leaders, many of whom have a far greater support base according to the poll? One explanation is that the Lukashenko administration has already imprisoned them. Viktar Babaryka, for example, was sentenced to 14 years in a penal colony for a host of financial crimes. Amnesty and other Western organizations have described the ruling as “politically motivated.” Other opposition figures, such as Maksim Znak and Maria Kalesnikava have also been jailed.

Another reason could be Tsikhanouskaya’s seeming total willingness to be a representative of the U.S. government in Belarus. Her senior advisor, Franak Viačorka, for example, is a consultant for the U.S. Agency for Global Media; the creative director of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, an organization described by The New York Times as a “worldwide propaganda network built by the CIA.” He is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council, a NATO-linked organization that boasts no fewer than seven former CIA directors on its board. At an Atlantic Council event in July, Tsikhanouskaya called on the West to do more to overthrow her opponent, saying “I think it’s high time for democratic countries to unite and show their teeth.” According to the NED’s Gershman, the U.S. continues to work “very, very closely” with her.

Tsikhanouskaya’s ascension from obscurity to political stardom mirrors that of Venezuelan politician Juan Guaidó, whom the U.S. contends is the country’s rightful president. According to Cuban intellectual Raul Capote, whom the CIA recruited to become president of the country after what it hoped would be a successful regime-change attempt, the U.S. prefers to work with unknown figures because of their lack of political baggage and Washington’s ability to shape them in a manner it sees fit. Tsikhanouskaya apparently sees herself in the same mold as Guaidó, describing him as “inspiring.” Meanwhile, Venezuelan anti-government demonstrators can be seen flying the flag of the Belarusian opposition at rallies.

Sviatlana @Tsihanouskaya líder de la alternativa democrática en Bielorrusia, es un ejemplo de resistencia y dignidad para quienes luchamos por libertad y democracia. Ambas son causas globales. La lucha de uno, sin importar las fronteras, es lucha de todos. #TIME100NEXT https://t.co/ZiP26j1mG4

— Juan Guaidó (@jguaido) February 18, 2021

Tsikhanouskaya fashions herself merely as a “transition president” who would not run for re-election after Lukashenko falls. This is eerily similar to how Jeanine Añez, the U.S. backed Bolivian leader who came to power after a coup against Evo Morales in 2019, described herself. Like Tsikhanouskaya, Añez was also an obscure political figure held up by the United States as the savior of democracy. Despite describing herself as the “interim president,” she immediately began radically transforming the country’s economy and foreign relations, privatizing state assets and moving Bolivia closer to the U.S. She also suspended elections three times before being forced to concede after a nationwide general strike paralyzed the country.

While in the United States, Tsikhanouskaya made sure to publicly meet with Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland. To those in the know, this was another clear message. Nuland was the brains behind the U.S.-backed Maidan Insurrection in Ukraine that overthrew the government of Viktor Yanukovych, bringing in a far-right, pro-Western administration. Nuland flew to Kiev to personally participate in the demonstrations herself, even handing out cookies in Independence Square in the city center.

At the Council on Foreign Relations, Tsikhanouskaya said she saw “a lot of parallels” between her situation and the Maidan, adding that “the Belarusian people will fight till our victory.”

Journalist or Neo-Nazi paramilitary poster child?

A second Ukrainian connection is the case of the arrest of opposition figure Roman Protasevich. In May, the Belarusian government forced a Ryanair flight between Greece and Lithuania that Protasevich was on to land in Belarus so that they could arrest him. By way of an excuse for the flagrant breach of international law, the government claimed it had received a credible bomb threat.

Video footage has now emerged of so-called ‘Belarus Journalist’ Roman Protasevich who it appears was in fact part of the neo-Nazi ‘Azov’ Battalion and fought in the #Donbass region of eastern Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/MUyOc9tng3

— Dean O’Brien – BA (Hons) (@DeanoBeano1) May 26, 2021

Western nations strongly condemned the move, imposing sanctions on Belarus in retaliation. Left unreported in Western media, however, were Protasevich’s ties to both the Maidan Revolution and to Western governments. Universally described as a courageous journalist, Protasevich had, in fact, been a member of the infamous Azov Battalion, a Neo-Nazi paramilitary that did much of the heavy lifting to overthrow Yanukovych. He was literally the group’s poster child, appearing on the front cover of its magazine Black Sun in full fatigues and holding a rifle. The Azov Battalion has since been absorbed into the Ukrainian armed forces.

After leaving the Azov Battalion, Protasevich was awarded the Vaclav Havel Journalism Fellowship in Prague and worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Thread. Re Protasevich and Azov. Here’s what’s out there to be analyzed against other evidence, commentary: 1st photo is Protasevich, 2nd photo is the cover of Azov’s “Black Sun” publication July 2015 issue #15. 3rd photo is what @azure says: “0.70 confidence” (that’s high-ish). pic.twitter.com/ucrjma8GEd

— Oleksiy Kuzmenko (@kooleksiy) May 25, 2021

Protasevich had traveled to Greece to attend a meeting with Tsikhanouskaya, the president of Greece, and U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt. Officially, he was there as a photographer. However, these connections certainly suggest there could be more to this story than meets the eye and that perhaps Belarusian authorities suspected something about the meeting, taking a calculated decision to detain him at all costs. What they found out or what information Protasevich was carrying will likely never be made public.

Посчастливилось поснимать @Tsihanouskaya в ходе её визита в Афины.

Было безумно круто получить такой опыт! Больше фото — в официальных аккаунтах Светланы Георгиевны. pic.twitter.com/ugHVHXLzrQ

— Roman Protasevich (@pr0tez) May 16, 2021

US supports plenty of tyrants, just not those who won’t play ball

The primary reason the U.S. government opposes the Lukashenko administration is not its authoritarianism, real as that might be. Even by its own definitions, the U.S. actively supports around three-quarters of the world’s dictatorships. Instead, Lukashenko’s steadfast refusal to privatize state assets, join NATO, or open the country up for foreign exploitation are Washington’s principal objections. Lukashenko has directly controlled the country since 1994; and, unlike the other former republics of the U.S.S.R., he has retained state control over industry and the comprehensive welfare state built up in previous decades.

As a result, there is essentially no extreme poverty in Belarus; according to a report by the World Bank and European Union, only 0.4% of the population live on less than $5.50 per day, with no one living on less than $3.20. This cannot be said for its neighbors; the number of people per capita living on less than $5.50 per day is 10 times higher in Lithuania and 18 times higher in Russia. In some other ex-Soviet countries that took different paths, such as Armenia and Georgia, the vast majority live in poverty, with fewer than 10% earning $10 or more per day.

Much of this reduction in poverty occurred in the 2000s. As most countries were entering a protracted recession after the 2008 financial crisis, Belarus was going from strength to strength. Between 2003 and 2014, the number of people unable to spend more than $5.50 per day dropped from 38.3% to 0.4%, while those making a middle-class income (defined by the World Bank as being able to spend more than $10 per day) rose from under 20% to over 90% over the same period, a feat the World Bank — no lover of Belarus or the U.S.S.R. — described as “impressive.”

The government continued to provide universal healthcare and socialized housing while developing new industries such as the tech sector. During this time, economic inequality actually decreased, Belarus becoming as equal as the Scandinavian countries much feted for their progressive societies.

Since 2015, however, the economy has struggled. The World Bank’s advice to Belarus was predictable: privatize, cut benefits (particularly heating allowances) and allow business to do its job. The Lukashenko administration has actually partially moved in that direction, a decision the World Bank described as “encouraging.” For the first time, the state now directly employs fewer than half the workforce. However, this has led to increases in poverty and a reduction in support for Lukashenko, who once seemed untouchable. Nevertheless, a survey conducted by hostile neighbor Poland still found the 67-year-old former state farm boss had a 41% approval/ 46% disapproval rating (not dissimilar to that of Trump and Biden).

Hardly helping this have been the U.S. and European sanctions that have targeted the country. While billed as an effort to “get tough” on the Lukashenko “regime,” sanctions, as the United Nations notes, “disproportionately affect the poor and most vulnerable.”

In August of this year, the U.S. announced a new round of sanctions, specifically targeting state-owned businesses in an attempt to make them less profitable. The European Union did likewise, also promising to pull Belarus out of its downturn if it overthrew Lukashenko. “Once Belarus embarks on a democratic transition, the E.U. is committed to help Belarus stabilise its economy, reform its institutions in order to make them resilient and more democratic, create new jobs and improve people’s living standards,” they announced, adding, “The E.U. will continue to support a democratic, independent, sovereign, prosperous and stable Belarus. The voices and the will of the people of Belarus will not be silenced.”

The government heavily restricts polling, so any gauge of the public mood in Belarus is far from precise. However, judging by the Chatham House/RUSI survey, it is clear that significant portions of the country support Lukashenko while other significant portions oppose him, along with some who are unsure. Opposing Lukashenko, however, does not necessarily translate into backing Tsikhanouskaya. Russia is by far the most popular country among Belarusians, 32% of whom want to formally unify with their larger neighbor. Only 9% want to join the E.U. and only 7% wish to join NATO. The U.S. is the most distrusted country, even among the young, urban tech-savvy citizens Chatham House and RUSI polled. Thus, while Tsikhanouskaya consistently claims to be the authentic voice of Belarus, it appears her prime constituency is in Washington and Brussels.

The United States might be able to hurt the Belarusian economy through economic warfare, but it is unable to make the people accept Washington’s chosen candidate. Living under an authoritarian system, Belarusians understandably dream of a more democratic future. However, they should be extremely careful whom they align themselves with: the U.S., NATO and the World Bank’s vision of democracy and prosperity might not align with what they naively had in mind.

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In line with its cultural and geopolitical biases, Western mass media has selective blinders, when it comes to criticizing the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Within this prism, the IOC meddling with the Belarusian athletics (track & field) staff and stated investigation of Russian state TV is quite okay.

The latter matter concerns derisive comments made about some Western LGBTQ athletes. In comparison, there’s no great call to investigate the (rhetorically put) U.S. state sponsored likes of Travis Tygart and Lilly King, making misleadingly negative remarks against Russian athletes.

The aforementioned Belarusian situation involves the treatment of a disgruntled sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who openly complained about getting selected for a relay team – followed by her being ordered home. Thereafter, she claimed political suppression, which made her the lead world headline (not just sports) on the BBC, for at least a full day, if not more.

Prior to Tsimanouskaya being ordered home, her complaint was over a coaching decision, along with an assertion that Belarusian athletics isn’t well managed. There’re numerous coaches the world over, who wouldn’t take kindly to such manner – arguing that she was hindering the morale of the team.

Meantime, how many Belarusian Olympic athletes showed solidarity for Tsimanouskaya? How many of them fled Belarus? Belarus having some clear human rights problems doesn’t by default make her into a genuine political dissident.

I’m reminded of the balderdash written about Artemii Panarin, supposedly being threatened by the Russian government for his political views. To date, there has been no such scenario. Since Panarin’s stated political comments, the greatest threat to him seems to have occurred when he was crudely body checked during an NHL game, in the U.S. by a non-Russian player.

You Olympic historians out there will recall German long jumper Lutz Long, congratulating Jesse Owens after their competition at the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics. Apparently, Long didn’t face any reprisal from the Nazi government.

In the spirit of sportsmanship, Ukraine’s Tokyo Olympic bronze medal winning high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh, hugged her Russian rival, Mariya Lasitskene, who won gold. That scene was a bit too much for the extreme nationalists with ties to the Kiev regime, who’ve openly criticized Mahuchikh. This criticism relates to the many Ukrainian citizens, who’ve close family and friends in Russia, while not having an anti-Russian outlook. Any IOC investigation on this particular?

At Tokyo, the all around individual rhythmic gymnastics competition, saw an upset, with Israeli Linoy Ashram, getting gold over the favorite Dina Averina. In Russia, there has been prominent criticism of the judging in that event – highlighting that Ashram committed some noticeable errors in her routine. On the flip side, some say Ashram performed the more difficult program. To no avail, Russia protested the decision.

My last article on the Tokyo Olympics drew this excerpted and slightly edited (without misrepresenting anything) reply from someone in Russia:

I am a patriot of my country. I don’t like a lot of things inside the country. But in which country is everything good? It’s especially bad that Russia does not know how to professionally deal with the misinformation of foreign media. Russia must learn to defend and attack in the media. Your help is huge. Thanks. I hope that many will change their negative perception of Russia.

In the West, it’s fashionable to portray Russians as cheats. Some years back, there was a U.S. aired commercial involving anti-Russian extraordinaire Bela Karolyi, being frustrated upon the sight of a depicted Russian judge. For the purpose of maintaining neutrality as much as possible in major international competitions, it’s commonplace to not have officials referee games involving their country.

Concerning neutrality, the World Anti-Doping Agency is headed by a Pole, Witold Banka, exhibiting an anti-Russian bias. Ditto the British head of World Athletics (track and field) Sebastian Coe. The nearly complete ban of Russian track and field athletes at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics and quota of ten Russians in that sport at Tokyo benefited Poland and Britain, in conjunction with a prevailing anti-Russian bias in these two countries.

It is no surprise that the downing of the Ryanair flight in Belarus, supposedly due to a bomb threat which took Mr. Protasevich into custody, caused a storm of international fury from the West. But the big question is why did Lukashenko decide to do this? The likelihood that this was truly a bomb threat from Hamas is very low as they are unmotivated to attack neutral Eastern Europe and have publicly denied putting any explosive device on that plane. This means that it is not unreasonable to break down this situation from the standpoint that the objective of the action was not connected to any bomb threat. On the surface it seems that the goal was to nab Western-funded babyface journalist/terrorist/genocide fanboy Roman Protasevich. But is the life of this one man worth the blowback for Minsk? Or is the blowback exactly what Minsk wanted?

Image: Lukashenko smiles and shakes hands with one man responsible for the genocide of Russians in the Donbass, who supports potential revolutionaries in Belarus like Protasevich. Pre Color Revolution Minsk was very naive or overly polite.

Proving the motivation behind one’s actions is very difficult. During the Trump period it was always up for debate whether his actions were motivated by long-term planning, his massive ego, the advisors around him, the Liberal theory that he is an insane monster, or some mysterious factor unseen to the majority of journalists. The truth is that his decision making as a human being comes from a whole mess of different factors making it impossible to determine why he would choose to do one thing over another. But what is possible to determine is what the results of Trump’s actions would be. So we can never truly know why Lukashenko chose to down that airplane but we can look at what the results of this action are likely to yield.

Firstly, Protasevich just like all other Liberal-Nationalist ghouls in Eastern Europe is expendable and very often the death of this type of person gets more value out of them, than their actual work does. Kiev found a hero in Stepan Bandera not because of any successes he had, because he had none, but because of his death, assassinated by the evil Russians making him a martyr. Because activists of this type are replaceable, and executing Protasevich will only turn him into a folk hero, it seems to be a terrible idea to take him into custody by downing an international flight. If this is a game of risk and reward then the risk seems to vastly outshine the reward. Why would someone who has been politically isolated for many years and is considered “the last dictator in Europe” want to bring all the economic heat of the USA/EU down upon themselves over one small expendable man?

Perhaps this is because the desired result is actually to be shoved out of Washington’s sphere of influence forever and Protasevich is a means to that end. For those in Belarus with pro-Russian leanings (definitely the majority of the public) then this move should look like a moment of triumph. Belarus finally has absolutely no choice left but to go East.

For over two decades now Russia and Belarus have existed on paper as a “Union State”. From within Russia this was hailed as a major victory in restoring a greater civilization, but after many years this big win remains mostly theoretical and on paper. Yes, there is no factual border between the countries and the ease of living and working between citizens of the two nations is palpable compared to other former Soviet Republics, but there has been no great merger. The desired results for the pro-Russian side would be to at least have the nations become as intertwined as those in the EU and at the most just melt into one nation with one currency, one army and one everything.

Image: The signing of the creation of the Union State. The big question is why has it stagnated for 20+ years?

This Moscow-Minsk daydream has not happened. Although Russians tend to do things in a pokey manner with many smoke breaks, 20+ years has been plenty of time to get this all worked out. The blame for the delay has been put on the treacherous nature of many local politicians, power plays by Washington, gross governmental inefficiency on both sides and/or the seemingly two-faced politics of “Dad” aka Lukashenko despite Russia basically keeping Belarus afloat via seemingly endless loans.

The classic Color Revolution attempt recently carried out against Lukashenko should have proved to him that in the 21st century the politics of a balancing act do not work. The classical idea of a smaller nation trying to balance itself between great powers for their own benefit is obsolete in a Monopolar World. It’s Washington’s way or the highway and Dad nearly paid the price for living in the Cold War from a foreign policy standpoint. Today the rules are a zero-sum game – you must submit to Washington 100% to stay in power. Any value of submission less than 100% is the equivalent of 0% and your days are numbered, ask Gaddafi.

Whether he knows it or not, whether it was planned or not, Lukashenko has now completely put all of his chips down on Russia via the delaying of the Ryanair flight and arrest of Western asset Protasevich. There is no going back and the end result of this decision is that Belarus has no choice but to orient itself 100% towards Russia. This means that the bureaucratic stagnation of the “Union State” will surely magically clear up in the near future.

Western economic and travel isolation of Belarus gives them really only one option and perhaps this was by design as a form of revenge or pragmatism after the Color Revolution flared up in support of Tikhanovskaya. Just like everything in Russian civilization this should have been done years ago, but when Russians do finally take action they go hardcore. The stars have aligned, by the pen of Lukashenko. Belarus is most likely to go back home with no looking back either by absorption or as part of some new EU-like structure.

World attention focused recently on Belarus because a political dissident was detained in circumstances that can only be called bizarre. The diversion to Minsk of Ryanair flight 4978 en route from Greece to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, was not only unnecessary and of doubtful legality, it was a disaster for Belarus in terms of public relations, domestic reaction and international policy. And although Belarus is small (about the same size as Yugoslavia or the U.S. state of Kansas), and landlocked, with a modest economy, its location and international links are important.

The chief executive of Ryanair, Mr Michael O’Leary, swung into action immediately, and after the New York Times reported the Lithuanian police as stating that five people who had boarded the aircraft in Athens did not arrive in Vilnius, “Mr. O’Leary said some of the passengers may have been agents of the Belarusian intelligence service, which is still known by its Soviet-era initials.” He said “We believe there were some KGB agents offloaded at the airport as well.” This was given much publicity but went off the boil when it became apparent that although it had been a conveniently exciting assertion it was totally incorrect. There were, indeed, five fewer people on the aircraft when it arrived in Lithuania but, as noted by the BBC, in addition to the detained journalist Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend the other three were ordinary civilians who had valid reasons for staying in Minsk.

Indignation grew in western capitals, however, with every effort being made by the media to associate Moscow with the affair in some manner. In this they were aided by the British foreign minister, Dominic Raab, who took time off from Britain’s never-ending and sadly ludicrous parliamentary pantomime, to declare it was “very difficult to believe” that diversion of the flight and detention of Mr Protasevich could have taken place “without at least the acquiescence of the authorities in Moscow.” He did add that it was “unclear as yet” exactly what had happened, but when asked by reporters why the diversion could not have happened without Russia being aware he replied that his belief was “Based on all the circumstances. But we don’t know – it is just the proximity of the relationship between Minsk and Moscow.”

This is the fashion in which British foreign policy is being conducted at present, but its lightweight absurdity does not detract from the effect on the public of such pronouncements, and it is understandable that the attraction of pointing a finger of blame at Moscow proved too much for some other politicians to ignore. One of the first in the ring was U.S. Senator Ben Sasse who, although as superficial as Mr Raab, has a ready audience for his anti-Russia policies and declared that “If President Biden wants ‘appropriate options to hold accountable those responsible,’ his administration needs to tighten the screws on Vladimir Putin. Like every puppet leader, Lukashenko doesn’t use the bathroom without asking for Moscow’s permission. It’s fanciful to imagine he’d hijack a flight between NATO allies without Moscow’s blessing. Putin’s regime is emboldened because the U.S. dropped our sanctions against his treasured Nord Stream 2 pipeline. We should impose those sanctions tonight.”

The Senator used the word “fanciful” in his denunciation, but there haven’t been many statements more fanciful than his assertion that Lukashenko’s illegal diversion of Flight 4978 was in some manner connected with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and the fact that the aircraft was flying “between Nato allies”. Would he have found it equally sinister if Flight 4978 had been travelling between two countries that were not “Nato allies”? The inanity of this legislator’s line of thinking is disturbing — but his reference to Nato is unintentionally illuminating.

Mr Raab and Senator Sasse were joined by Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in attempts to link Russia with the air incident. It was reported that Mr Stoltenberg spoke “on the deck of British aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth . . . during NATO exercises which include drills close to Russia’s border” saying that “We know the very close relationship between Russia and Belarus and therefore it’s hard to believe that the regime in Minsk could do something like this without any kind of coordination with Russia.” None of those who assert that Russia was somehow involved has produced a shred of evidence to substantiate their “belief”, but their pronouncements have been given wide publicity in the Western mainstream media and are in consequence believed by an enormous number of people who are being prepared for another surge in confrontation with Russia. It’s all about Nato.

The enlargement of the U.S.-Nato military grouping that began in 1999 continues to have the aim of expanding deployment of forces around Russia’s borders, in which it has largely succeeded. In order to bring what is officially called “Nato’s Forward Presence” right up to Russia’s frontier in the region between Latvia and the Black Sea it is necessary to have Georgia, Ukraine and Belarus sign up to the North Atlantic Treaty.

Georgia is already described by Nato as “one of the Alliance’s closest partners. It aspires to join the Alliance. The country actively contributes to NATO-led operations and cooperates with the Allies and other partner countries in many other areas”, and Ukraine is also a close military ally (although it hasn’t been invited to attend the Nato summit on June 14). On May 27 Radio Free Europe reported that Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy had “called on NATO to beef up its presence in the Black Sea region and asked Washington to back Kyiv’s bid for a NATO membership action plan at the summit” and while Nato was in any case in the process of expanding its operations in and around the Black Sea, it is likely the U.S. will indeed push for Kiev’s deeper involvement in confronting Russia.

But Belarus is a problem for Nato, and Lukashenko appears to have had a policy of trying to have the best of both worlds, by playing off Nato against Moscow. The official Nato stance is that the relationship is “based on the pursuit of common interests, while also keeping open channels for dialogue. Key areas of cooperation include civil preparedness and defence reforms. NATO works with Belarus to implement reforms in these areas, while continuing to call on Belarus to increase the pace of its democratic reforms.” But the airliner fandango has opened doors for future action that could bring Belarus into Nato.

The economic sanctions imposed on Minsk by the West will encourage growing domestic discontent (energetically supported by western governments and media), and could lead to a coup in Belarus. As noted by the impartial and objective Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, “Before the Ryanair incident, the drive to force Lukashenko out of power appeared to be stalling” but it has become obvious that his management of the flight diversion has been a disaster and has given impetus to his domestic opponents’ drive to dislodge him. This will be welcomed by the west (just as was the U.S.-sponsored coup in Ukraine), as it will be seen as a victory in the campaign against Moscow.

Whoever comes to power in Minsk will be faced by a stark choice between allying with Nato or Moscow. The future for Belarus will be full of challenges, and it is to be hoped the next government doesn’t fall into the trap of embracing the Nato “Forward Presence.”