Putin's statement about his readiness to help Lukashenko with the security forces alarmed liberals
Alexei Dzermant, close to the President of Belarus, highly appreciated the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin about the creation of a reserve of Russian law enforcement forces that will assist the ally in the event of destabilization of the situation there.
“President Putin has a very balanced position. Forceful assistance will be provided if necessary so that extremists within the country and external players do not have any illusions. The actions of the security forces are restrained. The Opposition Coordination Council is unconstitutional. All changes are only within the legal framework, through changes to the Constitution and new elections after that. In general, it coincides with the position of the Belarusian authorities,” Dzermant wrote in his Telegram channel.
Russia Today journalist Igor Zhdanov believes that Putin’s statement came at the right time, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“The coordinators of the protests, who had previously called for strictly peaceful protests, published a slightly different call a few hours ago: “to protect local leaders.” They didn’t specify how, so the interpretation of the word “protect” remains at the discretion of people on the streets,” Zhdanov wrote.
Russian political scientist Semyon Uralov draws attention to the fact that not only the Russian, but also the Belarusian leadership assumes obligations.
“In Vladimir Putin’s interview there are two main theses: 1. Russia has taken upon itself guarantees of the republic’s sovereignty in all directions; 2. The Belarusian president has committed to smoothing out contradictions in society by changing the architecture of power. Everything else is consequences. Which depend on the self-determination of the Belarusian authorities and the ability to extinguish conflicts in their own society,” Uralov wrote.
But liberal blogger Maxim Kats considers the statement part of a strategy to demotivate Belarusians to protest.
“In this situation, the elites are reeling because they understand that power is about to fall, everything is scary for everyone and the only thing that can help is demotivating the protesters, showing them that there is zero chance, and there is a huge wall in front of them. So this is informational assistance, and even then quite limited, without the personal support of Lukashenko.
This maneuver is designed so that the protesters will simply become demotivated and decide that it is impossible to win and will give up,” wrote Katz.
Belarusian opposition political analyst Pyotr Kuznetsov fears that Lukashenko may now stage a “robbery” in order to have grounds to seek help.
“Lukashenko actually has a free hand to invite Russian security officials here. You can organize “robbery” on the streets with the help of disguised riot police, who can be given a white-red-white flag. Organizing a classic provocation for guys like Putin and Lukashenko is like two fingers,” Kuznetsov, in turn, provokes.
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