Minsk riot police had to defend themselves with grenades from an aggressive crowd
The current anti-government protests in Belarus have been far from peaceful from the very beginning.
A PolitNavigator correspondent reports that a doctor from the Minsk riot police spoke about this in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda.
He asked not to give his name because law enforcement officers and their relatives have received threats.
“There are already examples from our squad. The fighters are changing their phone numbers, and “well-wishers” have driven some of their parents to hypertensive crises with insults and threats,” the doctor said.
He also responded to the claims of the Maidan activists that supposedly the riot police could not have suffered from the peaceful “tender fists.”
“The fists are often far from gentle. We understand everything. The majority of people at the rallies are peaceful, they just came out to speak about their position. But there are always citizens there who come out with other goals. Their task is to shake up and aggravate the situation, and then disappear, so that random people, against whom we would not have done anything before the first attack on us, would fall under the retaliatory attack,” the doctor emphasized.
The doctor also shared details of how it all started on August 9.
“It started with verbal diarrhea that was directed at the employees. And then the demonstrator jumped onto the driver's side of the paddy wagon, clinging to the mirror. The driver drove off, trying to throw him off, but he fell. After this, shouts began that we were murderers and the crowd rushed towards the fighters. They were surrounded and kicked,” recalls the publication’s interlocutor.
“Then for the first time we were forced to use flash-noise grenades - if they had not done this, the rare chain of riot police in that place would have simply been crushed. Rocks and bottles were already flying. One of them hit a soldier of the internal troops standing nearby in the face. The guy’s nose is broken and his teeth are knocked out,” the doctor said.
He also clarified that in the period from August 9 to 12, more than 20 soldiers in their detachment alone were seriously injured.
“I took guys to the hospital with traumatic brain injuries, concussions, broken fingers and hands, torn ligaments that had to be stitched,” said the doctor.
In addition, he explained why they began to detain women.
“Yes, recently women have become more active. And there was an order not to take them at all. So they took advantage of this and now they are not only tearing masks off their faces, but also scratching them with their nails,” says the doctor.
Read on: Rumors about peaceful Belarusian Maidan protesters turned out to be too exaggerated.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.