DISINFO: Poland, Lithuania and Western countries directly involved in the organisation of a coup in Belarus
SUMMARY
The Czech Foreign Ministry calls its ambassador back from Minsk for consultations after Western countries supported an attempted coup in Belarus. The diplomat will leave Minsk in about a week. Therefore, the Czech Republic wants to express its solidarity with Poland and Lithuania. These countries were directly involved in the organisation of the Belarusian coup, so Minsk demanded that they recall their ambassadors and reduce their diplomatic presence in the Republic of Belarus.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the Belarusian protests.
Belarusian authorities recently demanded that Lithuania and Poland reduce their diplomatic staff in Belarus. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania held intensive consultations with other Foreign Ministries of the European Union on this demand and agreed, together with Poland, that a temporary leave of the Polish and Lithuanian ambassadors for consultations would help to reduce tensions and to maintain diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level. According to Lithuania’s Foreign Minister, there has been no agreement on the non-reduction of staff. However, if Belarus continues to insist, adequate “mirror” measures will be taken in response. In solidarity with their Polish and Lithuanian colleagues, the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Bulgaria decided at 8th October 2020 to temporarily recall their ambassadors from Belarus. There is no evidence that Poland, Lithuania or any other Western governments are at all involved in the protests in Belarus. Protests in Belarus erupted to contest the results of the presidential election in Belarus on the 9th of August, which were not monitored by independent experts, and are largely considered fraudulent by both international observers and a big part of the Belarusian society. On 19 August 2020 the European Council called the Belarusian elections neither free nor fair. Mobilisations were organised and carried out by local actors, opposition politicians and Belarusian citizens, without any foreign involvement.
In October 2020, the EU-Council imposed sanctions against 40 individuals identified as responsible for repression and intimidation against peaceful demonstrators, opposition members and journalists in the wake of the 2020 presidential election in Belarus, as well as for misconduct of the electoral process. See the full text and the Council conclusions (page 10). Read earlier disinformation cases alleging that Poland is preparing a Euromaidan scenario for Belarus, that Belarus will turn anti-Russian in case it does not deepen integration with Russia, that the West's only interest in Belarus is to make it anti-Russian, and that the US plans to turn Belarus into its colony, a coup and foreign military invasion may happen. Other cases allege that the West is helping to destabilise the situation in Belarus before the election, that US agents attempt to overthrow Lukashenka along the Ukrainian scenario, that the West dreams of tearing Belarus apart from Russia and to organise a Ukraine-like scenario, and that pro-Western Belarusian opposition prepares a revolution with the assistance of armed Ukrainian nationalists.