DISINFO: Ukrainian secret services might have planned terrorist attacks in Belarus
SUMMARY
[The detention of Russian citizens in Belarus] was a huge operation, which was planned for at least half a year. I doubt that Ukrainian secret services were capable of organizing it themselves. Given the earlier phone call records between Biden and Poroshenko, the American masters are well aware of all operations planned by their Ukrainian puppets. The operation was blessed by the Americans, but the execution was purely Ukrainian. […] I cannot exclude that as a part of this operation, one or several terrorist attacks on the territory of Belarus were planned by the Ukrainian saboteurs. And Russians citizens would have been blamed for it.
RESPONSE
Conspiracy theory advancing recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about Ukrainian statehood, Joe Biden and alleged Western attempts to drive a wedge between Russia and Belarus. The disinformation message refers to the detention of 33 Russian citizens by the Belarusian authorities, who are alleged to be members of Wagner group, a private Russian military company. Ukraine has requested the extradition of a number of detainees over suspicions that they have participated in hostilities in East Ukraine. There is no reliable evidence to suggest that Ukrainian secret services were planning terror acts on the Belarusian soil, acted under the command of the United States or were involved in the detention of the members of the Russian private military company Wagner in Minsk. The disinformation claim in the TV broadcast is based the “investigation” originally published by the Komsomolskaya Pravda, which alleges the Ukrainian involvement in the affair based entirely on the manner in which the plane tickets were acquired. The claims of the Komsomolskaya Pravda have been debunked by the Russian investigative journalism site The Insider. See related disinformation cases alleging that the West is manipulating Ukrainian secret service to pit Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians against each other; arrest of Russian ‘mercenaries’ in Belarus was a Ukrainian provocation. Updated on 21 August 2020: clarified language in the third paragraph of the debunk.