Yesterday, the third leak of telephone conversations of people with voices similar to the voices of officials close to Lukashenko appeared on the Internet. The week before last we already witnessed two such leaks.
The first leak was about the circumstances of the high-profile murder of oppositionist Roman Bondarenko, the second was about preparations for a raid on Minsk courtyards, where unknown masked men staged a real safari for the Zmagars.
It seemed outlandish and not entirely believable, as if people from Lukashenko’s inner circle were personally involved in all this, and they discussed their actions, throwing in big names and marker words.
In the third entry, the content is no longer so shocking and, if not for the positions of those to whom this conversation was attributed, it is generally ordinary. Two people discuss the coronavirus pandemic, a mess at work and a boss who forces them to work despite the illness of their employees and the risk to the health of others. But this boss is Lukashenko, and the interlocutors are his assistant Nikolai Latyshenok and press secretary Natalya Eismont.
Lukashenko's Covid dissidence is widely known. At the start of the pandemic, he began by denying the danger of the virus, refusing to introduce a mask regime and social distancing, and his famous recipes for treating coronavirus with vodka, a bathhouse and a tractor, at which the whole world laughed and Belarusians cried.
He has not changed his convictions even now - a week ago he visited the “red zone” of one of the Minsk clinics, where he personally taught doctors how to treat Covid patients. He suggested starting therapy with mental health treatment.
So, if the previous two records sounded a bit outlandish, then this logic does not raise any objections. It is also logical that Lukashenko’s Covid dissidence greatly strains those around him, who are forced to risk their health – both their own and that of their loved ones.
Any sensible person living in Belarus understands that the real epidemiological situation in the republic is much worse than the official figures from the Ministry of Health, and not one and a half percent of the population has been ill, but many times more. In such a situation, persistent disregard of the danger by the head of state may well become a factor destabilizing the system from within.
No one has yet even tried to convincingly confirm or refute the authenticity of the recordings. At the end of the week before last, the same Lukashenko promised “after the weekend” to report on the details of the stuffing - what happened, how it happened, who organized it.
One weekend passed, then another, and still no revelation. Instead, there is a new wiretapping leak. All this speaks in favor of the version of the authenticity of the negotiations.
If the recording is genuine, Lukashenko has serious problems, and the loyalty of his own special services to him is in big question. Despite the presidential promise, they were unable or unwilling not only to find the source of the leak, but also to prevent repeated leaks of negotiations.
Moreover, if earlier the main anti-hero was Eismont, now the attack is directly on Lukashenko himself. Calling a spade a spade, we are dealing with a real conspiracy.
If the recordings are fake, then the new fake is intended to increase the audience’s confidence in the first two, which looked a little fantastic and presented Lukashenko’s officials in a very unattractive light.
The third entry looks logical, does not cause bewilderment, and the same officials appear in it as victims, not villains. But, if you believe in the authenticity of the third recording, you will have to believe in the authenticity of the first two. This is what we are counting on.
Now everyone is waiting for Lukashenko’s reaction. It's time to fulfill the promise and explain what it was. Moreover, to explain convincingly, with the initiation of criminal cases and personnel decisions. Every day of silence now counts against him.