MINSK, 20 April (BelTA) – The failure of the second wave of protests prompted the opposition to turn to external forces and to resort to a plot to overthrow the current government, political analyst Aleksandr Shpakovsky told the SB. Belarus Segodnya newspaper commenting on the plans of a group of persons to stage a mutiny in Belarus and the joint operation of the Belarusian KGB and the Russian FSB to eliminate this threat, BelTA informs.
“Even the tidbits of video materials publicized by the investigation team suggest that the plotters had a clear plan: who to intern, what public administration buildings to seize, who to assassinate. This falls within the scope of Article 18 of the Criminal Code: an organized criminal group united by a common criminal intent. Their intent was to seize power. It is hard to say whether they would succeed, but it was possible to predict that the ‘peaceful' protests that began in our country in August last year would develop this way. Indeed, it is quite obvious that the second wave of protests, an attempt to make people take to the streets en masse, failed. In this situation, the only thing that was left for them was to rely on external forces and some kind of conspiracy against the current government,” the analyst said.
According to Aleksandr Shpakovsky, appropriate performers were handpicked. They traveled to Belarus and other countries trying to find accomplices in government agencies of Belarus, first of all, in the power vertical, namely in the national security and defense agencies. “No plot is possible without involvement of representatives of the armed forces, law enforcement, special services, and so on. At some point, this group caught the attention of the appropriate services that started playing an operational game with these people, which reminds me of the legendary Operation Trust of the Soviet security officers of the early 1920s,” the analyst noted.
Russian political scientist Sergei Mikheyev, in turn, recalled that the CIA carried out similar operations to overthrow governments in third world countries: in Latin America, in Africa, in the Middle East. “Can it be viewed as something extraordinary, taking into account the recent aggravation of the situation in Belarus, the failure of the opposition? Indeed, it was a failure, whatever one may say. Obviously, it was assumed that the methods that had been used by Americans to achieve their goals in the past decades could not help in the case of Belarus and that physical elimination was needed. As to information about plans to kill Putin that was received throughout his term in office, it is difficult to say to what extent the American special services were involved. Such information emerged every now and then. Unfortunately, this is possible when the Americans rely on radical solutions. Ukraine and the things that are going on there are an example of a radical solution. I am personally convinced that it was the Americans who pushed them to shed blood instead of trying to come to terms. It was beneficial to them, because Yanukovych was ready to step down under the guarantees of European ministers who came, but nevertheless, they allowed bloodshed because it was in their interests,” the analyst said.
