Belarus (bbabo.net), - The events of 2020 that unfolded in Belarus after the last presidential election continue to have a serious impact on the internal political situation in the republic. The Belarusian authorities, which began cleaning up the political field from various kinds of radical elements, continue, as they promised, to find those who organized and participated in mass protests two years ago, hoping to remove Alexander Lukashenko from the post of president.
Over the past year, many trials have been held in Belarus, as a result of which many opponents of the authorities have lost their freedom, including those who tried in practice to destabilize the situation in society. A special place among the total number of so-called "protest" cases is occupied by a trial on preparations for a coup d'état in the republic. His peculiarity is that he opened up a whole anti-state network connected not only with local nationalists and radicals, but also with foreign states.
Back in April 2021, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko announced that Belarusian law enforcement officers had uncovered a conspiracy that planned to assassinate his family. For many, such a statement by the Belarusian leader came as a surprise, and most of the opposition and Western media started talking about the absurdity of such a statement. However, later the public was shown a whole investigation into this incident, and it also became known that the Belarusian KGB, together with colleagues from the Russian FSB, also arrested suspects in an attempt to organize a coup d'état in Belarus.
The main defendants in the case, the investigation of which lasted more than a year, were five people, three of whom had long been known in the republic. In particular, in April 2021, a political scientist and a well-known publicist in opposition circles Alexander Feduta and an American lawyer of Belarusian origin Yuri Zenkovich were detained in Moscow. At the same time, detentions took place in Belarus, where the leader of the nationalist BPF Party Grigory Kostusev, lawyer Olga Golubovich and opposition activist Denis Kravchuk were arrested. All of them became defendants in the most resonant case of protests in Belarus to date.
According to the data voiced during the investigation and the trial, the main initiators of the conspiracy were Zenkovich and Feduta. The first one, even before the start of the presidential campaign of 2020, arrived in Belarus with a clear goal - to find accomplices among the military and radicals to prepare the base for a future coup d'état in the republic. It is noteworthy that time the local Belarusian opposition was trying to prove to ordinary citizens that it would be able to defeat Lukashenka in the upcoming elections and that no forceful methods of influencing the authorities would be required. True, the activities of Zenkovich and his associates were at the level of theoretical discussion for a long time. Only closer to August did the conspirators begin to realize that they would not be able to achieve their goals by talking. After summarizing the voting results and the mass protests that began in the country, events began to develop dynamically, which resulted today in not one, but several lawsuits at once, one way or another interconnected.
According to the investigation, even before August 9, Zenkovich began to directly contact radical citizens and security officials known to him in the opposition, among whom was a conspiratorial Belarusian law enforcement officer Alexander Zhuravsky, who allegedly promised to resolve the issue in the military. At the same time, the conspirators began to develop a scenario for seizing power, part of which was to be the "Silence" plan, which provided for the elimination of Alexander Lukashenko. Formally, it was prepared by an extremist with Ukrainian-German citizenship Denis Hoffmann (Dis). This character is involved in several criminal cases in Belarus, including an attempted military coup, and the “Civil Self-Defense Units” organized by him were among the first to be included in the KGB terrorist list in 2021.
The plan itself was reminiscent of a Hollywood action movie script. For example, it was planned to hit Lukashenko’s motorcade with a grenade launcher, and after the elimination of the first person of the state, “throw into the net an appeal to the heroes of the new Belarus, who liberated the Belarusian people.” The conspirators had to turn to the security forces so that they went over to the "side of the people" and marked themselves with a white ribbon on their shoulders, and their vehicles with a white-red-white flag. In addition, under the cover of snipers, it was planned to bring columns of people to the center of the capital and announce the creation of a revolutionary committee of Belarus. In parallel, it was planned to release all political prisoners from pre-trial detention centers in Minsk, Baranovichi and Zhodino, including by assault.Such a plan aroused extreme skepticism even among the conspirators themselves, although they tried to find its executor by turning to Nikolai Autukhovich, whose terrorist group is currently undergoing another trial in Belarus. This time, 12 people are on trial in Grodno prison, who are called members of an “organized group”. Autukhovich himself faces the death penalty, as he planned a whole chain of terrorist attacks. In this case, it is noteworthy that this group received weapons from Ukraine, and the investigation claims that its leader was appointed by the Ukrainian special services as “the head of his cell on the territory of Belarus.” True, the accused denies such accusations, although he admits that he had close ties with Ukraine and himself "went" for weapons, which he stored in hiding places in the forest. It was this group that the conspirators led by Zenkovich planned to involve in the Silence plan. However, Autukhovich, who himself prepared the scenario of the coup, including the removal of top government officials, criticized the proposal made to him, and was subsequently detained, and contacts between the conspirators naturally ceased.
The general plan for a coup d'etat, which was discussed during zoom conferences and personal meetings, was an almost standard set of clichés from similar scenarios of "color revolutions" with an admixture of Bolshevik ideas. In some cases, his discussion looked like meaningless chatter, in which everyone tried to show their education and intelligence. For example, many stories about the overthrow of power in states around the world were recalled, and excerpts from the ancient Chinese treatise "The Art of War" were even quoted. At the same time, the desire to translate their ideas into reality was expressed by the majority of the conspirators, and it was planned to involve not only local radicals and nationalists, but also their Ukrainian colleagues, who had long-standing and strong ties with the Belarusian opposition structures, in the implementation of the plan.
In particular, the plan of the coup involved not only the elimination of senior government officials, but also the seizure of radio and television centers through which the conspirators were to turn to the Belarusians. It was planned to block security forces loyal to the authorities and turn off the power system in order to complicate the actions of state structures. In the first hours, dozens of government officials were to be interned, and victims were allowed not only among the security forces and government officials, but also ordinary citizens. After the main actions, the conspirators were preparing to abolish the post of presidentrust leadership in Belarus to the "Committee of National Reconciliation", where the posts had already been distributed. Subsequently, it was pathetically announced that the “cultivation of democracy” in the country had begun, of course, according to the Western model.
It is noteworthy that in their plan, the conspirators assigned a rather modest place to the ex-candidate for the presidency of Belarus, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. As it became known, she was approached for help in financing, but with a strict condition to join the conspiracy in exchange for the fact that she would be given the status of a person "who would be sworn in by the military." It is not surprising that this did not suit Tikhanovskaya's headquarters, where they were not ready to submit to anyone else, but also simply did not have free funds that they could independently manage. The conspirators needed money like air, although the appetites of Zenkovich, Feduta, etc., according to the information available today, were rather small. For example, the former OMON fighter Pavel Kulazhenko had to train 2,000 militants, who were supposed to spend $1 million on equipment, and he needed another $200,000 to carry out sabotage. In general - no less than $ 3.5 million, which by the standards of the "color revolutions" is a small amount.
The search for money was carried out in all directions, and Zenkovich seriously hoped that he would receive $ 10 million for a coup from representatives of the US military-industrial complex. They also turned to Ukraine for help, in particular to the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, with whom contact never took place. Funds were also sought from the fugitive leaders of the Belarusian opposition, who were supposed to extort money from the EU and the USA through their own channels. In particular, recordings of zoom conferences were shown in court, in which Vitaly Makarenko, a representative of the Belarusian Popular Front, a failed candidate for the presidency of Belarus, Valery Tsepkalo, and his wife, ex-Minister of Culture Pavel Latushko, and others took part at various times. In the conspiracy case even Roman Protasevich appeared, who was detained during the landing of a Ryanair plane in May last year. True, he appeared in court as a witness, fully revealing all the passwords known to him and the appearance of the conspirators.In addition, representatives of the so-called “independent trade unions” of Belarus, who were almost completely defeated this year, were also proven to be indirectly involved in the case, and some of their leaders, in particular the head of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions Alexander Yaroshuk, ended up behind bars. All this indicates that the conspirators planned to make their rebellion as large as possible in order to dissolve their responsibility in the largest possible number of participants, while simultaneously stuffing their pockets with funds received from abroad. As it turned out, all these dreams remained dreams, for which now you have to pay for years.
During the trial, almost all the conspirators, except for Grigory Kostuev, admitted their guilt either in full or in part. The leader of the Belarusian Popular Front repeatedly stated that he was not going to participate in the implementation of the coup d'état plan, but was present at its discussion only as a listener, because he was interested. However, this explanation did not satisfy either the prosecution or the court. As a result, on September 5, all five participants in the process were convicted.
In particular, Olga Golubovich and Denis Kravchuk, who were lucky not to be directly involved in the conspiracy, received 2.5 years each for participating in actions that violate public order. Alexander Feduta and Grigory Kostusev were found guilty of conspiracy to seize state power by unconstitutional means, for which they received 10 years in prison in a high-security colony. Zenkovich, who made a deal with the investigation and surrendered absolutely all his accomplices, received the most - 11 years, although for each of the articles that he was charged with, he was assigned half of the maximum term (no more than 6 years). This has already caused bewilderment among his lawyers, who announced their intention to appeal the verdict. The rest of the sentenced also have the opportunity to demand a review of the court's decision and, apparently, they will definitely use it. True, given Lukashenka's recent statement about the inadmissibility of an amnesty for "bandits and extremists", the conspirators should hardly count on indulgence. As well as the defendants in other cases that are related to the protest activities of the period 2020-2021.
Thus, the high-profile case of an attempted coup d'état that ended in Belarus was proof that by 2020 an extensive anti-state network had formed in Belarus, which, to one degree or another, had links with foreign states, including Ukraine. It involved not only anarchists, football fans and nationalists, but also political parties registered in the republic, “independent trade unions” and various pro-Western NGOs. Apparently, the current trials related to the events of 2020 will not be the last in Belarus, and the cleansing of the republic from radicals will continue for more than one month.
bbabo.Net