I am surprised no one posted about this here, it was all the rage in Western Europe, got a response from the State Dept ghouls, and even trended on Twitter for a while. So, here's the deal:
Today, a flight from Athens, Greece to Vilnius, Lithuania was diverted to an airport near Minsk, Belarus. The plane by now has been let go and it had landed in Vilnius. On board of that plane was Roman Protasevich, who had been arrested by the Belarusian forces.
Before I go into any details, here is my general take: good, impressive.
The arrestee
In the West, of course, this news is being presented as an unlawful and completely bonkers incident, with Protasevich being simply referred to as a "journalist." So who is he and why has he been arrested?
There's a good English-language article about who he is here , but the gist is as follows: 1) He was an editor of NEXTA, a Telegram channel with ~2 mil subscribers at it's peak (last summer), ran from Poland and on Polish, Lithuanian and who knows who else's, probably NED's too, money. The channel was key to coordinating and turning the last summer's anti-govt and largely pro-Western protests violent. They also concocted and advocated for various schemes to bring Belarusian economy down at its' most vulnerable: bank runs, strikes at state-owned companies, etc. 2) A staunch anti-communist and maybe not a nazi per se, but he fought with a nazi Azov division in Ukraine in 2014, as well as during the 2014 pro-western "Maidan" in Ukraine. 3) Worked with USAID-sponsored "news" orgs such as Radio Freedom, there are pictures of him at the US State Dept where he had some undisclosed meetings and underwent some training.
So, a typical neolib pro-Western stooge. He was operating from the Czech Republic and Poland for the most part and I suppose got a little too high on the feeling of impunity. Belarus, to no avail obviously, requested his extradition from Poland already back in February.
How it happened
There was a report, while the Ryanair flight was in the Belarusian airspace, that there might be a bomb on board. (This was over the new Belarusian nuclear plant, by the way). Belarusian Mig-29 and a helicopter were scrambled. ATC requested the plane to land in a backup airport near Minsk (or it was the pilots' idea, this is still not clear but also doesn't matter at all, see the next paragraph). Passengers were searched, there was a bunch of fire engines, dogs, etc. Anyway, in the end, Protasevich was detained and the plane went on its way.
What really happened
The info is still fresh and there is a lot of contradictory messaging, even from the official Belarusian channels. There was no bomb and that was very clearly an excuse to land the plane in Belarus, whichever way you wanna look at it. What it really was is a very well executed operation by the KGB to apprehend Protasevich. Reportedly, 6 other people, 4 Russians and 2 others I don't remember, also never landed in Vilnius after the plane was released. One of them is Protasevich's gf, the others--unclear at this point, there had been no explanation from Minsk. It is also not yet clear whether this is true. Awaiting more information on that front.
Western reaction
Hysteria. It even reached Twitter, but still, mostly was limited to certain European countries' "concerns" and condemnations. Some called it "hijacking." They have short memories. In 2013 Evo's plane was landed in Austria in a similar fashion, because the US suspected Edward Snowden could be on board. In 2016 Ukraine diverted a Belarusian plane under a threat of scrambling jets and without explaining any reasons for why the plane was being diverted. No international outrage in those two cases, of course. There are more examples like that, but we all know the western double standards.
My take, as a Belarusian who used to be a neolib fighting my govt, but who since recovered
First of all, really ballsy of Belarus. A small country snubbing the west like this. Of course they knew there would be a strong backlash, at least in the western media (symbolic sanctions forthcoming, no doubt). A very strong message to the "opposition" that's hiding in the west, at the western taxpayers' expense, trying to topple Belarusian "regime." It is funny also, that Tikhanouskaya, the Guaido of Belarus, reported flying the same route before and not being detained. Must feel bad, realizing one's unimportance. But she's done wonders, like Guaido, again, discrediting this whole pro-western anti-Lukashenka movement, so she's more useful being free.
There are many more small details about this case. I'll be happy to answer questions, about this or the general situation in Belarus currently. The country has become a new vector of presure against Russia, so if you are wondering "Why should I care?" this is why--it's an ancillary but still very important player in the US's war against Russia.
the flag they identify with (white-red-white) is ambiguous, but Nazi collaborators went under it too under the occupation during WW2
not explicitly, most people just don't know the history and are not neo-nazis, re that flag. but there is a bigger problem now. there are people that are so anti-Soviet that they begin to consider the nazis as liberators. not so much in Belarus yet, but very much in Ukraine.
But he also wears Thor Steinar and marches with fascists.
1 - LMAO
2 - Cool to have people from so many different countries
3 - Did Belarus had its own version of the disasters caused by the privatizations in the 90s happened in the rest of the Eastern Block?
- indeed!
- hello!
- excellent question. no! at least not to the extent it happened in Russia. the 90s were still turbulent in Belarus, but there were very strict controls on foreign capital and many breaks on the local "market economy" activity (which, imo, is one of the reasons some ppl turned against the govt, they just didn't understand what they were asking for); the country never let businesses control state politics. so it still sucked in a way, but it was much much milder than in Russia. the majority of protesters are upper-middle class now. they are not starving, they just want more, the way Marx described it: new consumption patterns inevitably produce ever growing needs
Nice, many years ago I ended up in Belarus' wiki page and got extremely jealous of its economy.
i was thinking that maybe europe having extradition treaties with the US would make this somewhat justified.
a president's plane is technically that president's country's sovereign territory. so there's actually no parity between that and what happened in Belarus. the former incident is much much more outrageous
By the hysterical reaction alone I had assumed that this guy was some kind of spook and not just a “journalist.” You think the west would have given a shit of it was some al-jazeera journalist? Fuck no.
They still use communist symbolism but I'm pretty sure most things there are run by the mob today.
you are kinda right lol, except Transnistria is not recognized as an independent state
I'm speculating about the NED (although there was this prank call that happened recently , a convo between NED people and the pranksters pretending to be Tikhanouskaya, that tells me I'm not entirely wrong), but generally these opposition leaders are being treated as very disposable by the west, and there is also a lot of infighting among them for money because of that (there are rumours that this Protasevich got betrayed by his own).
Like, yeah tho, it was a hijacking like it was a hijacking with Evo's plane. I'm not sure why you find it surprising that the EU reacted to a plane moving from one EU country to another was diverted like that lol
the EU doesn't give a shit about "hijacking," what they are afraid of is what the dude will reveal about the Western sponsorship of the opposition, hence all the hysteria
Ok questions, what happened to change your views on your country?
How much power does Lukashenka actually have? Seems like a chauvinist prick, but I imagine his western reputation as an iron fisted dictator has more to do with the government he heads refusing to sell out to or be subverted by the west.
Are the band Molchat Doma popular in Belarus?
Molchat Doma are more popular abroad! I dig them.
Seems like a chauvinist prick, but I imagine his western reputation as an iron fisted dictator has more to do with the government he heads refusing to sell out to or be subverted by the west.
I agree with you on both accounts here. My changed opinions are based on the pragmatic assessment of the geopolitical situation Belarus finds herself in. I used to be an idealist, and now am a materialist. The pro-western opposition's economic program is privatization and "optimization" (firing people) of state-owned industries as well as healthcare. That's not Lukashenka's program. Currently 40% of the country's budget is spent on social programs: pensions, free education, almost free healthcare etc. Also, after the news about his assassination plot by some opposition leaders (super overblown, but whatever) he signed a law that mandates that in case of his demise or departure power will co to the Security Council, which consists of pro-Lukashenka people, a kind of "collective president," so whatever you think of him (I'm not a big fan myself) this was a smart move that shows he cares about the country continuing its' current course (which I do, overall, support). So, on the one hand, he has a lot of power, doesn't even mind calling himself a dictator, but on the other there are mechanisms now for its transfer. Just not to those western stooges.
Isn't a dissident supposed to be someone internal? Not just a critique based out of other places. Otherwise Bin laden was a US "dissident"
let's not forget that before he became a "dissident" he was a darling of the US "on the road to peace" in Afghanistan
Everyone wants to relate to a freedom fighter or rebel, few people (Americans) know what that actually looks like, so it's an effective way to add a subtext of "you should be on this guy's side" without saying that
there's something very romantic about "dissidentship"; everyone loves the underdog
You’d think the US would pay him enough to fly on a better airline
edit: damn someone already made this joke
I just saw this in the news, and was like "yeah, sure he's just a journalist...." seems like we really want to turn Belarus into Ukraine 2.0, and end the tyranny of not selling the country to neolib ghouls who desperately want to fuck everything up.
Thanks for the post.
Exactly. For all the problems I have with Lukashenka, at least he's preventing the country from turning into another Ukraine.
How is Lukashenko's policies and how much support does he have? Are the Western regime change efforts a huge threat or is it mostly posturing?
Oh... I've seen it spelled both Lukashenko and Lukashenka. Which one is correct?
He is barely succdem, his support is mostly of lesser evilism type due to opposition being a mix of neolibs and fascists. In August 2020 they were pretty close to successfully repeat Euromaidan, but failed.
First spelling is Russian, second is Belarussian, pronunciation is the same anyway.
Lukashenka is Belarusian spelling. Lukashenko--Russian. So both are correct, since both languages are official state languages.
The govt has recovered from the last year's protests and is stable now, that's why they can afford such moves. About support, it's hard to tell. The election results gave him 87% I think, which is too high. But the opposition's claim that there are only 3% of Belarusian supporting him is blatant propaganda, which became evident from the protests' waning turnout. Like everywhere, most ppl are apolitical, in Belarus even more so maybe. If there was a twitter poll in which every Belarisian participated, I'd say somewhere between about 55 and 65% would chose him, but this is just a guess.
Re policies, 40% of the state budget is spent on social programs, and whatever people say, the country has grown and developed, albeit pretty slowly, since he assumed power in 1994.
Aren't leftists also against Lukashenka there? I know of lots of anarchists who were detained.
He is pretty shit, but pro-American opposition is even worse.
I mean okay, but i don't get why we aren't supporting local leftists against Lukashenko instead.
Few years and western leftists will side with fucking Orbán because he chose China instead of the US.
It's because local leftists split into three groups: those who support libs, hoping that they wouldn't beat leftists too hard (Ukrainian example has shown that it doesn't work); those who support Lukashenko, hoping he would press the socialism button (it doesn't work either, but at least there is more freedom to organise); those who went full "both sides" and are doing nothing (to nobody's surprise it doesn't work too, but at least they manage to avoid association with both libs and Lukashenko).
TLDR: there is pretty much no significant independent left organisations.
Yes, it's a mess. Lukashenka shouldn't be thought of as some sort of Castro, but pragmatically speaking, right now, he is a better choice than whatever the pro-Western opposition has been advocating. There are very few "true leftists" in Belarus, and they aren't organized at all, so they are not a real force, at least for now.
Do you know anything about Vladimir Neklyayev? (no idea how to spell that, apparently Уладзі́мір Прако́павіч Някля́еў according to wiki)
I have no idea what his politics even are, but I got the impression that he was rather popular. I know that he fled the country after getting beat up last time he ran for election. He recently returned to Belarus in order to remain politically relevant, but I haven't seen anything about him in the news.
I don't know much about him except that, like Bykav (prolly one of the most famous Belarusian writers) he at some point turned from a pro-Soviet guy into a pro-Western guy, and that the pro-Western opposition likes him.
