Komsomolskaya Pravda capitulated to Lukashenko

Komsomolskaya Pravda decided to close its branch in Belarus.

This is stated in a statement from the editorial board, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.

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“Having analyzed the events of the last year and especially the last week, Komsomolskaya Pravda decided to close its representative office in Minsk, JSC BelKP-PRESS. All employees will be paid monetary compensation or offered work at other KP enterprises,” the statement said.

The decision was preceded by the blocking of the Komsomolskaya Pravda in Belarus website and the arrest of one of its employees, Gennady Mozheiko. He was the author of a note in which oppositionist Andrei Zeltser, who shot a KGB officer, was presented in a positive light. This material became the reason for blocking.

The departure of Komsomolskaya Pravda was welcomed by journalists from Belarusian state media.

“This is a reasonable decision by KP. Our relationship with them will no longer even be neutral, and they are trying to create a conflict between Minsk and Moscow around the command post. The CPs themselves came up with the idea or the Kremlin suggested it - again. The result is accepted,” wrote TV presenter Igor Tur.

It cannot be said that the Belarusian Komsomolskaya Pravda suddenly opened up after Mozheiko’s note and even after supporting Belomaidan last year. For many years, the publication glorified Belarusian nationalists and mocked the memory of the dead Belarusians who fought for the LDPR. But before, the Belarusian authorities were happy with everything. Completely different journalists who wrote about the harmfulness of flirting with nationalists fell under repression. In 2018, journalists from the Regnum news agency received real sentences under the same charges for which the KP correspondent was detained.

_{“Now that Russian diplomats are still concerned about the fate of Mozheiko, everything would be much simpler and more effective if they amicably and collectively stood up for pro-Russian publicists in 2016 and prevented the shameful trial into which their trial turned. If the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its speaker Maria Zakharova, representatives of other departments had made it clear that persecution of representatives of the Russian media is unacceptable in any form, then they would not have had to drag Semyon Pegov out of the Minsk pre-trial detention center, silently swallow the insult and “turn the page”, and, of course, there would simply be no arrest of Gennady Mozheiko. We ourselves corrupted Lukashenko. We ourselves allowed him to treat the Russian media and our people exactly as is happening now,” Russian political scientist Bogdan Bespalko wrote in his Telegram channel.}

“How does a complete ban on the largest Russian media outlet without discussion with an ally fit into the declared course of integration with Russia? In fact, everything looks like for the Belarusian leadership there is no difference between the Russian Komsomolskaya Pravda and, say, the Polish-British Belsat? If this is so, how does it compare with statements about an alliance with Moscow? And if there is a difference, what is it? The questions are still unanswered,” says Vyacheslav Sutyrin, coordinator of the Russian-Belarusian expert club.

And the chief editor of the analytical portal RuBaltic.Ru, Alexander Nosovich, believes that this whole story is a PR campaign of Komsomolskaya Pravda itself, because the publication could continue to work even under blocking conditions.

“Does anyone really think that blocking can destroy online media? TUT.by was blocked - has it disappeared? It spread all over the Internet in dozens of streams.

The Communist Party in Belarus has long and clearly relied on the opposition electorate. This audience will not leave them anywhere. It will also grow due to the audience of the same guy. It is clear that the editorial policy of the Belarusian Komsa (or whatever it will now be called) will only become radicalized by moving into the illegal zone. But this is the choice of the Belarusian authorities if they decided to block the Communist Party completely,” Nosovich wrote.