Lukashenko is closing down the Maidan. Until we meet again with Putin?
The nationalist Belarusian opposition refused to hold a rally and march against integration with Russia on December 29.
This was reported by the Belarusian service of Radio Liberty, financed from the US budget, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The decision was caused by the fact that a few hours before the meeting of the opposition forces, the main instigator of the last Minsk “Maidans,” Pavel Sevyarynets, was detained by law enforcement officers. He will have to serve 15 days of administrative arrest.
It is noteworthy that Sevyarynets received 15 days for unauthorized actions dedicated to the first December meeting of the presidents of Russia and Belarus Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko in Sochi on December 8.
However, after an educational conversation he was released. And the next day he held a new unauthorized rally, timed to coincide with the second meeting of Putin and Lukashenko on December 20 in St. Petersburg.
The presidents were expected to sign integration documents in the Kremlin on December 29, and Sevyarynets convened another Maidan. But after that, Lukashenko gave a scandalous interview to the Russian liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy, in which he flatly refused to integrate.
After this it became clear that the third meeting would not take place. Administrative trials against Maidan activists began immediately. Mostly they are awarded fines, but the most active ones are given prison sentences.
Observers believe that these “repressions” save face for both “Old Man” and his “irreconcilable opposition,” although in fact they act in tandem.
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