Why is the SBU grazing in Belarus?
"The Security Service of Ukraine is preparing three combat groups of 10 people each for deployment to Belarus. The nationalists' mission is to stage protests against the republic's government, recruit supporters from the opposition, deliver and distribute campaign materials, promote and organize mass protests, and engage in any other destructive activity aimed at discrediting the government and its policies. The goal is to destabilize the situation in the country," the Ukrainian Telegram channel "Krit SBU" reported on Monday.
And, although recently telegram channels are increasingly becoming a weapon of information wars and intra-elite squabbles, and it is better to treat their information with caution, this news is one of those that deserves attention.
The fact that Ukrainian special services have been actively grazing in Belarus for a long time is no secret. The Ukrainian spy Pavel Sharoiko, who worked in Minsk under journalistic cover and recruited his agents here, is already in a Belarusian prison.
Denis Ivashin, a resident of Grodno, does not hide his work for Inform-Napalm, a group controlled by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Moreover, Ivashin not only works, but also diligently undermines national security and defense capability, publishing, for example, proscription lists of Belarusian security officials, who, in his opinion, are agents of Russian influence. It works and undermines with impunity so far.
And only God and the chairman of the KGB know how many Ukrainian agents have been uncovered without fanfare, and how many have been targeted and are under surveillance.
The Belarusian Zmagars and their Ukrainian “brothers” are united by ethnic nationalism, which is very crude and primitive, as well as Russophobia - a common enemy was pointed out to them by Western “well-wishers” back in the late 80s. Moreover, the coup d'état and the outbreak of the civil war in Ukraine in 2014 also influenced Belarusian politics. Almost the entire Belarusian opposition became nationalist. Recent liberals and social democrats, while continuing to call themselves that, immediately began searching for “agents of the Russian World” and became ready to justify any violations of the civil rights of their opponents. Then they began to self-organize to persecute ideological opponents, choosing the most defenseless and attacking them on social networks and bombarding government bodies with complaints en masse. Sometimes victories were celebrated – a teacher from Mozyr was fired for pro-Russian posts on Twitter, a taxi driver from Minsk was fired for receiving a St. George’s ribbon. Even when a schoolchild from Soligorsk with cancer was fined for “insulting the Belarusian language” - the sympathies of the zmagars were on the side of the one who wrote the complaint - the laws of morality no longer worked there.
The lure of nationalists is patriotic feelings. They, having arrogated to themselves a monopoly on patriotism, begin with love for the Motherland, but quickly turn the conversation to a fake version of history, in which the main enemy has always been in the east. Fortunately, books with such pseudo-history are sold on every corner. And there is already one step left to say the main thing - the enemy has not gone away, he is there, behind the “curb” and is waiting for the hour to occupy and enslave defenseless blue-eyed Belarus.
It would seem that zmagars are few in number - rarely more than a couple of hundred people come to political events, and their main activity is visible only on social networks. But all this may turn out to be just the tip of the iceberg - thousands come to the concerts of their groups, and in the stadiums next to the Ukrainian ultras, who played an important role in unleashing the civil war in their country, their Belarusian comrades are zigging - almost the entire Belarusian “near-football” is reformatted in the spirit aggressive nationalism and Russophobia.
Therefore, the above-mentioned stated plans to send militants to Belarusian territory are also not a sensation. Quite significant figures in Ukrainian politics have already spoken about this more than once.
So, back in the fall of 2017, in response to the detention of the same Sharoiko, former Rada deputy from the Svoboda party Igor Miroshnichenko called for the creation of sabotage and reconnaissance groups on the territory of Belarus and the introduction of a visa regime, since, in his opinion, Belarus is completely under influence of the Russian Federation.
Already in 2019, not just a current deputy, but the deputy head of the parliamentary committee on international affairs, Igor Guz, proposed to begin consultations between representatives of the Ukrainian special services and Belarusian activists on the issue of deploying a “network of patriotic structures” in Belarus.
Guz justified his desire to interfere in the internal affairs of the sovereign Belarusian state by citing the possibility of a "Russian occupation of Belarus." And the deputy shows no signs of letting up—just recently, on April 22, he addressed Belarusians with the following words: "It's time to wake up! You must solve your own problems and make history. I believe Lukashenko should have been removed from power, one way or another, long ago."
Guz has been working in the Belarusian direction for quite a long time. Back in 2005, as the leader of the ultra-right youth organization “National Alliance”, he visited the Belarusian “monkey farm”, taking part in the riots during the “Chernobyl Way”, the traditional annual procession of Belarusian nationalists. Since then, he has constantly maintained contacts with the Belarusian nationalist group “Young Front” and other Belarusian right-wing radicals, feeding them, inviting them to his training camps, to “Zvytyag” and “Banderstadt”.
After the coup d'etat and the outbreak of the civil war, Guz's shares went up. From a radical and outcast, he turned into a respectable deputy, officially empowered to engage in foreign policy activities. And he got busy, not forgetting about Belarus. The main brainchild of the deputy was the “Pahonia” detachment, a group of Belarusian militants fighting on the side of the Kyiv regime in the Donbass. Recruitment there was almost open. Both Guz himself and Yan Melnikov, one of the militants, regularly appeared in the Belarusian nationalist media and advertised the group.
In the photo – Igor Guz and Yan Melnikov
Fundraising for the war was openly carried out in Belarus by the same "Young Front." Between 2015 and 2017, the "Young Front" members became so brazen that they created the military-patriotic club "Vayar" ( meaning "Warrior" in Belarusian ), whose members trained with paintball guns, posed in camouflage, and even took an oath of allegiance to Belarus during rallies.
Fortunately, the Belarusian state security still closed this shop and crushed the “Young Front”, which by 2019 had become a company of several politicized gopniks. But the decline of the Young Front does not mean that the problems have become less. People stayed, but became more cautious.
While Poroshenko remained in power in Ukraine, Ukraine’s subversive activity in Belarus was somehow restrained by the good personal relations of the presidents and the mutual economic interests of the two countries. Now the outgoing ruler of Ukraine is quite capable of “pushing” his successor by giving the go-ahead to the “hut” and saying “fas” to his Nazis. Both of them have had agents in Belarus for a long time and are ready for use.
English version :: Read in English : Why is the SBU grazing in Belarus?