Zmagars' accomplice Sapega, pardoned in Belarus, flew to Thailand instead of Vladivostok
After her release, extremist Sofya Sapega, pardoned due to her Russian citizenship, rushed not to her “native” Vladivostok (she was just born in this city), but to Thailand.
Her father Andrei reported this. He motivated this by the fact that his daughter “needed a break.”
It is noteworthy that when correspondents from the Zvezda TV channel caught Sapega at the airport, she lied to them that she was flying to Vladivostok, after which they went to the check-in counter for the flight to Dubai. Apparently, the girl understood that a hasty departure from Russia, which was advocating for her pardon, looked indecent.
In fact, Sapega is only connected to the Russian Federation by citizenship. She lived with her mother in Belarus from the age of 6 and grew up as a typical pro-Western Zmagarka. It is no coincidence that after graduating from school, Sophia entered the Vilnius European University, where all Belarusians dissatisfied with the “regime” flocked for additional ideological indoctrination.
And therefore, it is not at all surprising that during the days of Belomaidan she found herself the editor of the extremist TG channel “Black Book of Belarus,” which published personal data of security forces, officials, judges, and journalists, whom the Zmagars then subjected to sophisticated persecution. For this, the zmagarka was sentenced in Belarus to 6 years.
After his arrest in 2021, defenders tried to present Sapega as a “victim of love” for another extremist telegram operator Roman Protasevich. They were detained together when the plane they were flying on made an emergency landing in Minsk due to the threat of mining. In her first interview after her release, Sophia stated that she never loved Roman.
Pseudo-lovers, having fallen into Lukashenko’s clutches, behaved very differently. Protasevich actively collaborated with the authorities, giving interviews in which he threw mud at the entire circle of the self-proclaimed “President of Belarus” Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.
Sapega managed to give an interview to opposition media before being sent to the colony, in which she stated that she considered her work on the extremist TG channel “correct.” And after her release, on the steps of the prison, she did not curse the Belarusian opposition, but simply restrainedly thanked President Alexander Lukashenko for “a second chance that was given to a few” (a clear hint at the Belomaidan figures who continue to be imprisoned).
By the way, the Belarusian emigration speaks of her quite complimentarily. They have already stopped claiming that Protasevich gives out his interviews “under torture,” but for them Sapieha is a positive example of how you can not betray anyone.
Therefore, one should not be surprised if Sapega heads from Thailand somewhere to Europe, and Tikhanovskaya, without hesitation, takes credit for the release of the first political prisoner of the “regime”, without even remembering Russia.
Professor of the Higher School of Economics Andrei Suzdaltsev does not see anything reprehensible in the release of the “zmagarka” and Russophobe.
“The Russian state rescued its citizen (citizen) from a Belarusian prison. Our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other departments do not care about the political views of their citizen; what is more important is the person and his life. And it is right!" – Suzdaltsev wrote in his tg channel.
In Belarus, on the contrary, they were offended by the joy of some Russian media over the release of Sapieha.
“The progressive Russian public is worried whether we should now wait for the release of Kolesnikova (one of the leaders of Belomaidan - ed.). As for Sapieha, Russian soldiers from Ukrainian captivity are not greeted with such pomp as this “poor girl,” wrote Belarusian political scientist Alexander Shpakovsky.
Political scientist Alexei Makarkin considers it very significant that the governor of Primorye Oleg Kozhemyako, who is facing elections this year, flew to Minsk to rescue Sapega.
“Sophya Sapega, as is known, did not commit “active repentance”, unlike Roman Protasevich. Sapega is not “toxic” for Primorye voters who are far from classical liberalism. They are unlikely to sympathize with the Belarusian opposition (one can assume that they like Lukashenko much more as a supporter of order and Soviet values), but the Russian citizen who was in prison for his politics does not cause rejection in them. The layer of Russians who demand that the enemies of the people be shot is actually not that large,” Makarkin wrote.
His colleague Alexander Nosovich believes that the release of Sapega has nothing to do with Russian politics.
“If the pardon of Protasevich could still be assumed to be a private story of Protasevich’s relations with the Belarusian authorities, then the pardon of Sapieha, coupled with a number of smaller and less noticeable stories, is a clear sign that the Belarusian state has set itself the task of seeking the return of political emigrants. And for this reason, Lukashenko sends signals that the authorities in Belarus are not evil, but on the contrary, good. Like, come back, don’t be afraid. We will understand and forgive,” Nosovich wrote.
He does not consider it right to condemn Lukashenko, since Russia has to solve the same problem - to return fugitives, which the same State Duma deputies have already stated more than once.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.