The KGB put the Belarusian zmagars on the brink of a grandiose trick

There is another loud scandal in the Belarusian pro-Western opposition. Everyone still remembers how a year or two ago the Zmagars regularly published high-profile revelations and leaks of personal data of officials, security forces, pro-government and pro-Russian activists. Time passed, the leaks ended, and then the time came for boomerangs; problems with personal and financial information began among the zmagars themselves.

No sooner had the scandal died down around Belarusian intelligence officer Artur Gaiko, who for 9 months worked undercover in the leadership of the “Black Book of Belarus” project and all this time regularly leaked the data of all the project informants to Minsk, when the white-red-white public faced more a larger scandal.

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At the end of the 2020s and the first half of XNUMX, the Belarusian opposition had a favorite toy - crowdfunding platforms, through which it was possible to collect money almost uncontrollably for any initiative - from ideologically charged Belarusian language courses to large-scale rallies under nationalist slogans.

The largest such platform was Molamola, behind which stood the famous Babariko family. Until the thunder struck, they all acted absolutely legally and were feeding grounds for a whole network of zmagars.

_{By the 2020 elections, the undeterred opposition public had already become accustomed to this, and when the unrest began, the volume of donations for the “needs of the revolution” began to break all records - opposition funds boasted of millions of sums collected in a matter of days.}

The ban on Belarusian crowdfunding platforms did not solve the problem - they began to donate directly through banks or through Facebook, which also provided such an opportunity.

And now they have come for the donors. After the New Year holidays, information began to arrive about extensive lists of employees of IT companies and, according to some sources, banks, which were sent to their leadership by the Belarusian KGB. The employees were summoned for a conversation by state security and offered to make amends.

Those who supported the rebellion in 2020 with rubles were encouraged to support a truly good cause with rubles in 2023 - on a scale of 1 to 10, make a donation to any of the charitable foundations of your choice. Paid 50 dollars for the revolution - pay 500 to help, for example, children with cancer. They definitely need this money more, and there is a guarantee that it will not go to pay for the luxurious life of corrupt zmagars.

Otherwise, the unlucky donor has every chance of spending the coming years in not the most comfortable conditions - in modern Belarus, financing extremist groups is a criminal offense and is punishable by imprisonment.

And it would be fine if we were talking only about transfers to bank accounts - the KGB definitely has no problems with access to the data of Belarusian banks.

But the piquancy of the situation is that they also come to those who donated through Facebook, which, it seems, guarantees the anonymity of such transactions. Both banks and intelligence services can only see the transfer to Facebook from an authorized Belarusian card, but not where exactly the money went - to pay for online games or to “shake the regime.” But no one comes to gamers, they come exclusively to zmagars.

Now the media controlled by the Belarusian opposition have begun to promote the version about a hole in Facebook security found by the Belarusian special services, but there is also a problem here. In order to exploit this vulnerability, physical access to the account from which the funds were transferred is required. And, of course, there are problems with this.

_{Therefore, most likely, we are dealing with a new leak of information from the depths of opposition funds. It’s impossible to believe that the data was leaked by Zuckreberg and Meta, but it’s impossible to believe that it was done by “an insider” who infiltrated the management of these funds – of course.}

In this whole story, the icing on the cake is that the structures of the “fugitive” opposition have found how to make money here too. As in the case of Arthur Gaiko and the previous leak of sensitive information, the head of the BYSOL Foundation Andrei Strizhak suggested that those who are “at risk” leave Belarus.

But, according to the opposition telegram channel “Onoshko’s Headquarters”, which was disillusioned with Tikhanovskaya and her cronies, the “evacuation” procedure is far from free - the price tag starts from two thousand euros. Accordingly, Strizhak hopes to make his own profit out of this mess and earn another million or two from relocants.