Smoke without fire: Was there a “cleansing up” of the pro-Russian conspiracy? – version from Minsk
Belarusian political scientist Alexander Shpakovsky calls not to believe reports about the “cleansing of participants in a pro-Russian conspiracy” in Minsk on the eve of the May holidays. In a column for PolitNavigator, the expert claims that we are talking about the fight against corruption without any political background.
...The next wave of the anti-corruption campaign in Belarus, which even covered the former Deputy Secretary of State of the Security Council, Colonel Andrei Vtyurin, gave rise to a wave of ridiculous speculation in the pro-Western nationalist press and in Russian political Telegram channels. Meanwhile, back on April 19, speaking in parliament with his annual message, Alexander Lukashenko announced upcoming events, when, in the process of discussing the topic of fighting corruption, he mentioned that, according to materials from the special services, “another hundred people are in line.”
“Pro-Russian conspiracy”: was there a boy?
However, when the predicted arrests began a few days later, the above-mentioned resources began vying with each other to report on the exposure of a certain “pro-Russian conspiracy” in the depths of the Belarusian security forces, and now it is quite difficult to determine who acted as the primary source in this situation - telegrammers or nationalists.
It is quite natural that the Ukrainian press, as well as the Western media, could not ignore such a topic, based on which the legend of the “conspiracy,” as they say, “went to the people,” acquiring more and more new details, depending on the breadth of the author’s imagination.
The lack of comments from the Belarusian law enforcement agencies only strengthened the ridiculous rumors and few of the “experts” thought about the legal side of the issue, that is, about the norms of criminal procedure legislation, which provides for a 10-day period for filing charges and choosing a preventive measure for the detainee (Article 108 Code of Criminal Procedure of the Republic of Belarus).
Meanwhile, exactly after this period, the KGB website appeared official announcement, that “Andrey Aleksandrovich Vtyurin has been charged with committing a crime under Part 3 of Art. 430 (“Taking a bribe”) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus.”
As it turned out, on April 23, a high-ranking security official was caught red-handed while accepting a bribe of $148 from a representative of a Russian business entity for assistance in promoting its interests.
It is noteworthy that the Russian businessman was also charged with giving a bribe; both defendants admit their guilt in full and are currently subject to a preventive measure in the form of detention.
Thus, the “pro-Russian conspiracy” turned out to be an ordinary canard, counting on cheap hype and an ignorant public, and Colonel Vtyurin, who worked for a long time in the Security Service of the Belarusian President, fell into the millstone of an anti-corruption purge, which was especially actively carried out in Belarus after the Ukrainian events of 2014 .
Official Minsk made the correct conclusion that the basis of the protest sentiments of the Ukrainian population, used by external and internal forces to organize a coup, was mass hatred of the corrupt Yanukovych regime, and in principle there have never been “untouchable” officials and businessmen in Belarus.
The Russian factor and corruption in Belarus.
In this regard, it is interesting that in parallel with Vtyurin, the general director of the largest campaign of the Belarusian telecommunications market Beltelecom, Sergei Sivodedov, was detained. accused in receiving a bribe in the amount of 15 euros for assistance in the supply of equipment. At the same time, during a search at Sivodedov’s place of residence, 000 thousand US dollars in cash were discovered, which, according to investigators, were received by the accused in other episodes of bribery.
In the Sivodedov case, a representative of a Russian commercial campaign also appears as a bribe-giver, based on which conspiracy theorists and simply ignorant people began to combine these episodes with each other, and some publicists in the Russian Federation even called the arrested officials “radically pro-Russian politicians.”
At the same time, although it is incorrect to call Colonel Vtyurin a politician, he can still be considered a significant political figure, then the name Sivodedov, except for employees of the enterprise entrusted to him and specialists in the field of telecommunications, was hardly heard by anyone before his arrest, as in Belarus , and beyond.
As for the involvement of Russian business in these matters, it must be recalled that the trade turnover between Belarus and Russia at the end of 2018 amounted to $35 billion, and this despite the fact that Russia is naturally the leading partner for the Belarusian economy, and Belarus, in turn , consistently occupies 5th place in the system of foreign trade relations of the Russian Federation with countries of the world.
Moreover, in 2018, exports from Russia to Belarus increased by 3 billion US dollars, so it is natural that with such volumes, Russian companies use not entirely legal methods to promote their interests.
It should be noted that large capital behaves in a similar way on the domestic Russian market, as well as on the markets of third countries, and if all the detained bribe-takers who lobbied the interests of Russian businessmen are classified as “heroes,” then there may not be enough space for them at the Kremlin wall.
It should also be noted here that more than 60% of the total number of crimes committed by foreigners in Belarus are committed by Russians and this is also objectively the other side of the medal of the Belarusian-Russian union.
Moreover, in these crime statistics, economic crimes, bribery and other similar acts are far from uncommon, including very high-profile cases.
For example, such as detention Belarusian intelligence services in August 2013 of the top manager of the Uralkali campaign Vladislav Baumgertner in response to an attempt by the structures of the Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov to seize control of the Belarusian potash industry.
That is, the situation that occurred is absolutely typical, and there is no doubt that over time the investigation will provide society with answers to all questions of interest, but an unpleasant aftertaste will remain.
Information Security Union
It turns out that out of nowhere, without any negative statements from official Moscow and Minsk, anonymous sources and publications with a dubious reputation disseminated false information, obviously aimed at undermining trust in Belarusian-Russian relations.
After all, what kind of “pro-Russian conspiracies” against the leadership of Belarus can we talk about if almost all senior officers of the Belarusian security forces and army at one of the stages of their education necessarily underwent training in the Russian Federation, and the countries have a common military doctrine of the Union State, joint military units have been created and are functioning collegium of law enforcement agencies and special services?
That is, while the military of Belarus and Russia are preparing for the next exercises "Union Shield 2019", which will take place in the fall of this year, active subversive work is being carried out in the information space.
In this case, it does not matter what motives guide the authors and coordinators of the activities of anonymous Russian telegram channels, however, the synchronicity and identity of their publications with the materials of the Belarusian pro-Western nationalist press indicates a lot.
An attempt to spoil the atmosphere in relations with Moscow’s closest military-political and economic ally not only testifies to the truly low level of competence of these “strategists”, but also raises a logical question about whether these circles really care about Russia’s interests or whether their motivation is based completely different logic.
This situation once again raises the question of the advisability of correlating the approaches of Belarus and Russia in the field of ensuring information security, including a kind of “media hygiene” in allied relations, otherwise the spread of lies and disinformation will contribute to the formation of a biased position and may create serious problems in future communication, when In the next 7-10 years, the elites of the two countries will have to build their own trusting ties without the participation of Putin and Lukashenko.
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