DISINFO: The EU provoked a civil war in Ukraine, now it destabilises Belarus
SUMMARY
Instead of regulating old military conflicts in Eastern Europe, the EU provoked new ones, which manifested in the civil war in Ukraine. A coup d’état in Kyiv was one of the elements which made a military conflict in Donbas inevitable. The same Eastern Partnership drivers which pumped Ukrainian society with radicalism for its “European choice” currently perform the same activities in Belarus. In 2017, the authorities of Belarus prevented an attempt to organise armed protests in Minsk with external support. Back then, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko announced that militants sent to Belarus were trained in military camps in Ukraine and financed through Poland and Lithuania. Hence, two active Eastern Partnership coutries were destabilising Belarus.
RESPONSE
This is a mix of ungrounded claims and conspiracies which are consistent with recurring pro-Kremlin propaganda narrative about Western attempts to instigate colour revolutions in European neighbourhood countries. There was no coup d'état in Ukraine. The spontaneous onset of the Euromaidan protests was an organic reaction by numerous segments of the Ukrainian population to former President Yanukovych’s sudden departure from the promised Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013. See the full debunk of this disinformation claim here. The war in eastern Ukraine is not a West-driven civil conflict but a well-documented act of aggression by Russian armed forces, ongoing since February 2014. There was no attempt to stage armed protests in Belarus in 2017 with external support. The claim about the opposition's attempt to conduct a terrorist act is unfounded and the charges were dropped by Belarusian investigators. At the same time, as Belarus 2017 Human Rights Report by the US State Department reads, opposition leaders faced multiple arrests by the Belarusian authorities: "Throughout the year, Statkevich and Uladzimir Nyaklyaeu, another 2010 presidential candidate, opposition activist, and former political prisoner, were arrested repeatedly and placed in administrative detentions, usually in connection with unauthorised gatherings and demonstrations." Statkevich team member Sergey Kuncevich was detained on 25 March 2017 and accused of transporting Molotov cocktails as part of a larger coordinated attempt to organise mass protests. Nearly, at the same time, Belarus' state-owned mass media (BelTA) published an article “Militants staging a provocation detained in Belarus” reporting about weapons allegedly confiscated from other accused. Investigators found no evidence to confirm the accusations and the criminal prosecution of all those arrested in relation to the case was closed in late November 2017. See earlier disinformation cases alleging attempts to destabilise Belarus using Ukrainian weapons here and here. See earlier disinformation stories alleging that Belarusian opposition leaders prepare a coup with US military assistance and proclaimed a crusade against the Orthodox Church in Belarus.