Over the summer, Russian political scientists collected information in Belarus, allegedly in the interests of the Gazprom corporation and the Russian Foreign Ministry. Their goal was to destabilize the situation in the country after the elections.
The coordinator of the headquarters of Viktor Babariko, who was not allowed to participate in the presidential elections and is in a pre-trial detention center, Yuri Voskresensky, spoke about this during interrogation.
The interrogation episode was shown on the Belarus-24 TV channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to Voskresensky, he began working at Babariko’s headquarters in June. He was involved in distributing information materials on Facebook.
“Around June, Moscow political scientists contacted me through Facebook. Dmitry Bolkunets. At the meeting, he introduced me to his colleague, political scientist Andrei Suzdaltsev. Both of them constantly participate in the program of Vladimir Solovyov. They also comment on Belarusian issues. They offered to communicate further on the subject of studying the socio-political situation in the Republic of Belarus - to convey to them open information that I took from telegram channels. Sometimes with comments from a political scientist who is here on the front line, with my expert opinion,” said Voskresensky.
He claims that in early August Bolkunets invited him to another meeting.
“On it, he trumped his connections with the chairman of RAO Gazprom, Alexei Miller, as well as in the Russian Foreign Ministry, from which I got the opinion that he possibly expresses their will and somehow advises them. Dmitry Bolkunets expressed his intention to destabilize the socio-political situation in the Republic of Belarus on the eve of the elections. Destabilization was supposed to be expressed in bringing to the attention of the population the results of alternative candidates and the results of an alternative vote count. He asked for contacts with the candidates’ headquarters,” the oppositionist noted.
It was supposed to destabilize the situation with the help of laser pointers
“He also took out 30 thousand rubles from his personal funds with the words “this is for democracy” and advised to donate for the purchase of laser pointers, in case of violence by riot police, in case of destabilization of networks. Shining a light in the faces of law enforcement officers in order to prevent them from performing their functions of detaining protesters. Directly to break the chains of law enforcement officers,” says Voskresensky.
He claims that on August 12, “realizing that mass events were turning into total uncontrollable chaos,” he decided to confess to the KGB.
“I realized that I was being used as a pawn in the dark by Moscow puppeteers. I would like to urge our citizens, and above all young people, especially minors, not to participate in these actions due to the unpredictable consequences,” Voskresensky concluded.
Let us remind you that on the eve of the elections in Belarus, 33 Russians were unjustifiably detained, who were also accused of destabilizing the situation. Previously, President Alexander Lukashenko and political scientists close to him accused the “Russian oil and gas lobby” of financing the Belarusian opposition.