Even so, Koto said, the events of the turbulent week make it difficult to predict when Lukashenko’s 27-year rule will end.

“This is Fascism, Stalinism and Orwell 1984, All of these are done at the same time. When Kotau talked about the Belarusian government, he had been loyal to the Belarusian government for 15 years.

Is the president 2020 general election Finally hurt him

After the general election, independent observers and Western countries stated that the election was affected by intimidation, detention of opposition candidates and lack of transparency. People walked and entered the streets of thousands of Minsk and other cities from the weekend to the weekend. winter.

“main reason [I left] It’s brutality and violence on the streets,” Kota told CBC at the Warsaw shelter.

“In August 2020, after a completely rigged election, our authorities tried to force the people [to believe] The election campaign is democratic and transparent.

“Minsk has become a battlefield, which is too much for me.”

Belarusian battlefield

Kotau is part of an extremely rare club for senior Lukashenko officials who gave up power and turned to the opposition.

He spent his entire career in the public service of Belarus (during Lukashenko’s tenure) and held high-level positions in the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Olympic Committee, and finally the presidency. administrative office, Report directly to Lukashenko.

Despite this, Kotao said that he rarely has direct contact with leaders.

This week, the country’s political crisis of nearly a year broke out again because the Belarusian operation sent a MIG fighter jet to ensure that a Ryanair aircraft was transferred from Athens to Minsk instead of landing at a destination in Lithuania.

After the plane landed on the ground, the secret police or KGB (in Belarus, it has never been renamed from the Soviet era) was evacuated and arrested. The 26-year-old journalist Roman Protasevich.

Like many other Lukashenko opposition factions, Protasevich fled the country and went into exile, where he ran a social media site to promote anti-Lukashenko activities.

Soon after being detained, Protasevich appeared in what a friend said “Hostage Video”. They suspected that he was beaten and forced to admit that he broke the law by inciting illegal protests. The Belarusian police also detained Protasevich’s girlfriend, a 23-year-old Russian national named Sofia Sapega.

Watch | Protasevich said that he is cooperating with the authorities on video friends suspected of being coerced:

Belarusian journalist Raman Pratasevich said in a video posted online to the Telegram messaging app on Monday that he was in good health and provided investigators with evidence of organizing a large-scale riot. 0:30

Increase economic sanctions

Kota has become a member of the so-called “national anti-crisis management” team of the Belarusian opposition. He has used his experience in cooperation with Western organizations and governments to try to establish stronger ties between the anti-Lukashenko forces and the rest of the world.

He said that he was encouraged by the EU’s response to Belarus’ actions to ban its national aircraft carrier Belavia from many countries and to prevent EU aircraft carriers from flying over Belarusian airspace.

But Koto said that Europe and other countries must also target Belarus’s main export industries (petroleum products, fertilizers and potash) to increase pressure on Lukashenko.

EU officials said on Thursday that they are adopting a package of economic sanctions, but they have not yet announced it.

Kotaou said: “Without external finance, Lukashenko’s economy cannot survive, cutting off the source of income will shorten his life.” “He will not be able to pay wages for most Belarusians… These people will take to the streets. “

Koto quoted Belarusian: “The refrigerator will vote”, which shows that Lukashenko’s iron-fisted regime will only be shaken when people no longer bear the basic necessities of life.

Watch | Parents of arrested Belarusian journalists plead for help:

The parents of detained Belarusian journalist and government commentator Roman Protasevich pleaded with the international community for more help to ensure his release, while Belarus found itself after forging a bomb threat to arrest Protasevich Isolated from the world. 2:04

Ryanair diverted to rekindle the opposition

Before the Ryanair incident, forcibly driven Lukashenko loses power It seems to be stagnant. With most major opposition leaders imprisoned or in exile, the protests have disappeared, and the suppression of the security services has intensified.

Only in the previous month, the British Daily Telegraph According to reports, more than 200 people have been arrested, leading to thousands of days in jail, usually for trivial crimes such as wearing opposition red and white on shoes or gloves.

Since the beginning of the protest movement, 35,000 people Has been arrested and sentenced to thousands of prison terms.

Unfortunately, some of them, including 50-year-old Vitold Ashurak (Vitold Ashurak), died in mysterious circumstances during a short period of imprisonment. The body of Ashurak was sentenced to five years in prison this week and his body was delivered to his family this week. The authorities claimed that he died of a heart attack, but his family said he had no health problems before his arrest.

Demand loyalty

Human Rights Watch The Belarusian police said they often demoted and tortured political prisoners.

Koto said Lukashenko’s KGB was also able to force employees of state-owned enterprises that dominate the Belarusian economy to remain loyal, thereby extending his power.

Defections by higher-level governments are extremely rare.

Kotau said: “The system is trying to scare everyone to stay in the system and remain silent.”

“It’s impossible now [for a civil servant] If there is no matching, get nominated for a higher position Kompromat“, he said, this refers to the efforts of the secret police to blackmail people by exposing embarrassing details of their personal lives.

“The system nominates people with problems. That’s why they can’t log out of the system because the system will sue them.”

Putin’s role

Before the political turmoil, Russia was already Belarus’ largest trading partner, accounting for almost 50% of its international trade. In the months that followed, Russia’s importance has been growing, and President Vladimir Putin has provided political and economic support to the Lukashenko regime.

The Kremlin even sent a team of “journalists” from the state-run TV station to Minsk to adapt to the Russian propaganda techniques when Belarusian media workers resigned.

Former British ambassador to Belarus, Nigel Gould-Davies, stated that Putin views Belarus as a buffer zone between Russia and Europe and is worried about the Ukrainian situation. Mass protests in 2014 overthrew the pro-Russian government.

In an interview with CBC News shortly after the Ryanair incident, Gould Davis said: “Russia is seeking to use Lukashenko’s isolation from the West to pursue its own domination by expanding its de facto dominance over Belarus. Long-term agenda.”

Personally, Lukashenko and Putin seem to have an uneasy relationship. Their embarrassing body language at the joint press conference indicated that they had no enthusiasm for each other.

This week, the official Kremlin’s statement about Protasevich’s arrest has been ignored. Russian state television has never praised Lukashenko for the so-called hijacking, but instead focused its criticism on Western responses.

Gould Davis said that the mistrust between the two leaders boiled down to the fact that “Putin always wants more.”

“He not only wants Belarus to become an anti-Western fortress in front of Russia; he also wants to expand control of Belarus, Lukashenko, and gain control of key economic assets.”

High economic price

On the other hand, Lukashenko wanted to avoid becoming Putin’s p.

Last Friday, the two met in Sochi, Russia, in the Black Sea, a meeting held before the incident last Sunday.

Putin said in a brief comment that the indignation of Westerners over the jet plane incident is not real.

When the two met in Sochi in September 2020, Lukashenko promised to provide Russia with more than $1 billion in loans.

Kotau said Russia may have no choice but to continue sending money in its own way.

Koto said that “the economic cost of hijacking aircraft is very high.” He estimated that in the worst case, European sanctions could cost Belarus US$5 to 15 billion in economic losses each year.

At the same time, Lukashenko seems determined to remind Russia that the fate of the two countries is intertwined.

In a speech to the Belarusian Parliament this week, Lukashenko said: “Our value to Russia is the same as Russia’s value to us.”