The Ukrainian authorities are trying to sit in two chairs. On the one hand, they want to respect their pro-Western commitments including participation the Lublin Trio together with Lithuania and Poland. The Lublin Trio serves as a ram for political transformations in Belarus with the aim of including the latter in the anti-Russian front. On the other hand, Ukraine does not want retaliatory measures from Belarus given that the first round of colour revolution failed. Ukraine’s irrational actions towards Belarus means Ukrainian policies are not made in Kyiv.
Polish strategists, assisted by leading American think tanks like the Rand Corporation, elaborated concepts of hybrid aggression against Belarus. Now that the Belarusian state sustained external aggression, Kyiv risks facing larger security threats from the North than before. Such risks for Kyiv will be higher in case the West transfers the center of anti-Belarusian activities from Poland to Ukraine.
This article promotes recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about Ukraine as a Western puppet, Belarus protests as being organised and controlled from abroad and as the West's attempt to organise a colour revolution. It is also consistent with a pro-Kremlin narrative about the West's attempt to disrupt Belarus-Russia relations.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba announced Ukraine's readiness to line up with the EU sanctions on Belarus. However, there is no evidence that Kyiv was forced by the West to do so, just as the claims about a West-driven colour revolution and aggressive 'Lublin Trio' are groundless. There is no evidence that the US, Lithuania, Poland, or Ukraine somehow staged massive unprecedented protests in Belarus. They began in Minsk on August 9 against the results of the presidential election, and then in other cities. People revolted against election fraud and police violence towards thousands of rally participants.
According to statistical data and independent observers, the official result of the presidential election was itself heavily doctored. A joint monitoring effort by three NGOs demonstrates the scale of falsification based on election protocols from 1,310 polling stations across Belarus and concludes that the announced result (80% of votes cast for Lukashenka) is mathematically "impossible" (p. 7). An analysis by the Novaya Gazeta newspaper shows that excluding "anomalous" voting districts from the official tally would see Lukashenka's percentage drop to 43%, and Tsikhanouskaya's surge to 45%, in which case a second round would have to be called.
According to human rights advocates, over 15,000 people have been detained in Belarus since the election, and over 100 of them were declared political prisoners. By September 2020, UN human rights experts received reports of 450 documented cases of torture and ill-treatment of people deprived of their liberty after the disputed presidential election and called on Belarus to stop torturing detainees.
In early October 2020, the EU imposed restrictive measures against 40 individuals 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. The Council added 15 members of the Belarusian authorities, including Alexandr Lukashenko, as well as his son and National Security Adviser Viktor Lukashenko, to the list of sanctions, on 6 November 2020.
See earlier disinformation cases alleging that protests in former Soviet countries are part of an anti-Russian plan, that imperialistic Poland and Lithuania are the springboard for Belarusian Maidan, that CIA and Pentagon prepares Belarusian protestors in Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic states, and that the West destabilises Belarus to destroy Russian civilisation, an alternative route of human development.
In 2016, Lithuania began the trial over January 13th events in Vilnius. Lithuania assumes that people, who died in the clash at that time, were killed by Soviet soldiers.
Russia argues that during the events in Vilnius, Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union and was not an independent state. Respectively, the army carries out official duties according to law. It seeks to ensure public order. Moreover, not one person died due to the actions of Soviet troops.
The case contains historical revisionism and recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the events of January 13th, 1991.
Lithuania restored independence from the USSR in March 1990. Moscow tried to foil the secession with an economic blockade. When that proved ineffective, Soviet troops still garrisoned in the capital Vilnius attacked its TV broadcast tower and sole TV station, killing 14 civilians. The events of the January 13th, 1991, and crimes committed by the USSR troops have been extensively documented. See also BBC reporting from 1991.
All that we are witnessing of Western behaviour indicates that Western countries have engaged with a certain party, giving their support to terrorist organisations. The German logic in describing events is one that testifies to political dependency on the United States, which has clashed with Russia on several fronts in Syria and wanted to strong-arm Russia. However, Moscow has proven its ability to confront in the battlefields. Germany and the Western countries do not cooperate with Russia in the fight against terrorism because they cannot be against the United States in their general political orientation, so therefore all Western countries are escalating against Moscow.
A conspiracy theory supported by no evidence and a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative suggesting that the US and the West more broadly sponsor terrorism. The claim was neither critically challenged nor counterbalanced in the article.
This message is part of a recurrent narrative alleging that the Europe, United States and its NATO partners have established many terrorist organisations and control global terrorism.
The US (presidential) election is a theatrical “parade,” presented as an example of democracy, in which … only two parties present their candidates.
A disinformation message related to the presidential elections in the United States.
President Donald Trump and his Democratic contender Joe Biden have dominated headlines in the months leading up to the US election day. But those two are not the only names that appeared on presidential ballots in states across the country.
