![]() While Protasevich denied that Shraibman steered the protests, his imputed role was sharing comments on how to make those more successful.įollowing the broadcast of the interview, Shraibman promptly left Belarus for Ukraine. More meaningful and deserving scrutiny are the disclosures of the second kind: Protasevich’s accounts of playing an intermediary role between the alleged coup organizers arrested in Moscow on April 12 ( EDM, April 19) and Tsikhanouskaya generous donations of some Russian oligarch to the NEXTA Telegram channel (most probably, by Belarus-born Dmitry Mazepin of UralKalii, a potash producer) the existence of sleeper cells still in Belarus that the organizers of the coup relied upon the extent of Protasevich’s activities within the Ukrainian Azov battalion (Protasevich is leery of the extradition request filed by the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic and begs Lukashenka to deny it) and the makeup of the so-called coordination council of the August-September protest rallies in the form of a Telegram channel chat.Īmong other participants of that council, Protasevich mentioned Artyom Shraibman, one of the most reputable voices in the Belarusian opposition-minded community. ![]() The expression of respect to Lukashenka, whom Protasevich called “the man with balls of steel,” also pertains to the same category that possibly accounts for 80 percent of the entire broadcast. Not to mention the budget of the Belaruski Dom (Belarusian House) in Warsaw the monthly rent for Pavel Latushko’s apartment in Poland the team of stylists working on exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s attire the interviewee’s ego wounded by some of his partners who reportedly enjoy recognition for what he had accomplished and speculations about who might have leaked Protasevich’s itinerary to the KGB. The stories about corruption in the opposition, its leaders jockeying for the attention of Western sponsors, and asking that sanctions be imposed on Belarus belong to the first kind. There is no middle ground or nuanced interpretation, which is problematic for making an independent analysis.Ī modicum of relief can be extracted from the observation that Protasevich’s disclosures fall into two categories: a) predictable and b) those with a potential for launching an investigation and even somewhat altering one’s picture of reality. ![]() According to the contrasting response, shared by the opposition-minded media (e.g., Svaboda, June 3) and by most Western observers, the interview is a public spectacle of torture taking it seriously makes no sense as the interviewee is a hostage, who, quite possibly, was also beaten, threatened and fed with “truth-inducing” drugs. According to one of them, offered by the state-run media (e.g., Belarus Segodnya, June 4) and Lukashenka-loyalists inside Belarus on their social network accounts, what Protasevich disclosed deals a crushing blow to the foreign-induced protest movement and marks the beginning of moral reckoning and normalization. There are, indeed, two contrasting responses that Protasevich’s interview has elicited. In other words, preconceived notions often matter more than the story itself. It reflects how we feel when faced with top stories in the news-and Protasevich’s interview had half a million viewers on YouTube within the first 24 hours after it aired on TV ( ONT, June 4). Of course, “perception is reality,” which is a counseling formula harnessed by contemporary media. The preview turned out to be accurate, at least in the perception of one side of the Belarusian societal divide. He will tell us about the schemes for financing destructive activities, plans for Belarus and the promises of “donors”…He will tell us about the crimes committed in the east of Ukraine by volunteer battalions, in which this passenger, according to his own confessions, is involved-the photos from his phone have already been presented to the media” ( Belta, May 27). Valery Belsky, an assistant to President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, previewed Protasevich’s interview one week earlier, writing that Protasevich would “turn inside out the dirty laundry of runaway collaborators, whose livelihood is sustained by neighboring countries. Much of what was not aired is subject to investigation, according to the interviewer Marat Markov, whose subtle and at times smarmy style, far detached from that of cookie-cutter ideological crusaders, created a semblance of objectivity. ![]() This 96-minute-long interview was extracted from four-and-a-half-hour of footage. On June 3, Belarusian TV showed an interview with Roman Protasevich, captured by Belarusian intelligence services after the forceful landing of the RyanAir aircraft en route from Athens to Vilnius ( YouTube, June 3 EDM, May 24).
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