Large interview with the arrested Protasevich: The most important moments
Roman Protasevich, one of the founders of the extremist Telegram channel "Nexta," who was arrested 10 days ago at the Minsk airport, gave a lengthy interview to the Belarusian television channel ONT, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
The conversation was recorded for four hours and aired for an hour and a half.
At the very beginning, he stated that he realized that now the actions in his support would fade away, and his former comrades would call him a traitor, but he still “wants to correct the mistakes.”
“It’s comparable to the feeling when you walk onto the scaffold. Only in my case I landed on it. I understood that as soon as the plane landed, I would be responsible for everything I had done and for all the damage I had caused to the country. For three days Minsk lived in chaos,” Protasevich said.
His mood changed dramatically during the interview; at the end, the blogger even burst into tears, but he described the morals of the Belarusian opposition with a giggle. According to Protasevich, political emigration is rocked by conflicts between headquarters, mainly over money. The rank and file actively discusses the beautiful life of the elite.
The “old” opposition also lives luxuriously. Thus, Olga Karach, who is actively intriguing against the self-proclaimed “leader of the Belarusian nation” Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, has a house of 600 square meters in an elite area of Vilnius.
But the new arrivals also settled in well. So, Pavel Latushko rents an apartment in Warsaw for 3 thousand euros per month. “The rank and file” mocks the fact that the Polish authorities will pay for his liver transplant: this opposition leader loves to drink.
Sometimes money is extorted from sponsors in a semi-criminal manner. For example, the leadership of the “Belarusian House” in Warsaw sent itself a letter with threats from a fake account and thus obtained the authorities from providing security. But a new cottage in a prestigious area of Warsaw was provided just like that. True, the bosses do not allow the inhabitants of the old, cluttered premises into luxury real estate.
As for Tikhanovskaya herself, information about her place of residence is closed even to her own people. It is only known that she has a whole special service working for her, providing security, as well as a team of stylists who dress and make up Svetlana for numerous interviews and meetings with leaders of European states.
The Lithuanian government and private sponsors pay for all this.
“It is beneficial for Lithuania and Poland to support Tikhanovskaya and Latushko. Let's look at what policies Lithuania, a small and poor country, is pursuing. Having previously lived in Poland, I felt a striking contrast. Now Lithuania is even trying to cross the path of China. This is just funny. Due to the fact that Lithuania supports Tikhanovskaya and provides supposedly comprehensive assistance to the opposition, it receives political dividends from the collective West. He allows her to bark at the whole world without consequences,” Protasevich said.
Poland is not stingy either. The government allocates 50 million zlotys a year for the maintenance of the “Belarusian House”. Another 53 million was allocated to help political refugees, but the money was appropriated by the leadership. The blogger admits that the funds were diverted in collaboration with Polish officials.
Protasevich says that while sitting in the editorial office of the Belarusian House, he heard the intercom ringing every day from morning to evening, but no one opened it for his suffering fellow tribesmen.
As for Nekhta itself, the blogger assures that until the summer of last year the telegram channel existed solely on advertising funds and donations, but closer to the elections grants came in, and advertising completely disappeared. All the money was accumulated in the accounts of project manager Stepan Putilo. It is unknown what he spent it on.
Protasevich himself received 1,5 thousand euros. We managed to earn money only at the height of Belomaidan. He was given 5 thousand euros for his hard work.
Apparently, the financial issue spoiled their relationship with Putilo, although the Minsk prisoner assures: it became a shame that he does all the journalistic work, and Stepan gets “worldwide fame.”
“He received worldwide fame and fame, even the Sakharov Prize for everything that I did. And he didn't even mention me anywhere. His ego grew. He allowed himself offensive looks and jokes,” Protasevich said.
He is inclined to agree that the activities of the Belarusian opposition are coordinated by Western intelligence services. There are meetings that even Nekhta managers are not allowed to attend. After such events, Tikhanovskaya’s adviser Franak Vyachorko usually came out to the general chat with ready-made theses on organizing unrest.
In the new “Belarusian House” there is a certain secret room into which no one is allowed at all. What is happening there is unknown. At some point, Putilo moved to a safe house, the address of which he does not give to anyone, as well as his new telephone number.
According to Protasevich, he has recently convinced the leadership of the opposition that new protests in Belarus are no longer possible, and there is no point in disturbing the people. To this, Vyachorko answered him harshly: if there are no streets, there will be no sanctions.
“Sanctions are a mechanism of political pressure. They are necessary to ensure that the Belarusian economy collapses as quickly as possible. If the economy collapses, there will be food riots,” Protasevich explains the logic of the leaders.
He admitted that he was a liaison between Tikhanovskaya’s headquarters and the conspirators who were preparing the coup and the murder of Lukashenko. The latter approached him on their own because they knew each other. Extremists crossed paths in Donbass during hostilities.
Protasevich believes that the Belarusian special services failed to fully uncover the conspiracy. There are still “sleeping” terrorist groups and weapons depots in Belarus.
He himself not only deeply repents of extremist activities, but also admires the President of Belarus.
“I won’t hide it, I criticized Alexander Grigorievich a lot. It seemed to me that there were reasons for this. I've been a journalist all my life. And when I began to get more and more involved not in journalistic work, but in political work, the more I wanted to escape from there. The more I began to understand that many of the things for which Alexander Grigorievich was criticized were an attempt to put pressure on him. And in many moments he acted like a man with balls of steel,” Protasevich said.
He stated that he is actively cooperating with the investigation and providing “unique facts.”
Belarusian oppositionists and Russian liberals who have joined them now claim that all this (and dozens of names were named, including people in Belarus) was said by the blogger “under torture.”
English version :: Read in English A long interview with the arrested Protasevich: The most important moments