Belarus dissident Roman Protasevich says protests should be abandoned in video that supporters claim was coerced
- Protasevich was arrested last month after his Ryanair flight was diverted to Minsk, the Belarusian capital, citing a bomb threat
- The 26-year-old has been a vocal critic of President Alexander Lukashenko, who has cracked down on dissent after contested elections
A dissident journalist who was arrested after his plane was diverted to Belarus said in a video from prison that demonstrations against the country’s authoritarian leader had fizzled and the opposition should wait for a better moment to revive them. It was Roman Protasevich’s second such appearance that his allies dismissed as being coerced.
In footage broadcast on Wednesday night on Belarusian state TV in an hour-long programme, the 26-year-old Protasevich also said that he had been set up by an unidentified associate.
The presenter of the broadcast on the ONT channel claimed the Belarusian authorities were unaware that Protasevich was aboard a Ryanair jet flying from Greece to Lithuania when flight controllers diverted it to the Belarusian capital of Minsk on May 23, citing a bomb threat. No bomb was found, but Protasevich was arrested along with his Russian girlfriend.
Outraged European Union leaders called the diversion an act of air piracy and responded by barring the Belarusian flag carrier Belavia from the bloc’s airports and airspace, telling European airlines to skirt Belarus and drafting new bruising sanctions against the country.
President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet nation of 9.3 million with an iron fist for more than a quarter-century, has accused the West of trying to “strangle” his country with sanctions.
The video of Protasevich, who left Belarus in 2019 and has become a top foe of Lukashenko, marked his second appearance on state TV. In his first, he spoke in a rapid monotone and said he was confessing to staging mass disturbances. His parents, who live in Poland, said the confession seemed to be coerced and that make-up appeared to be covering up bruising on his face.
In the new video, Protasevich looked more relaxed and smiled occasionally, but a top associate said Protasevich again was clearly speaking under duress.
When the plane was on a landing path, I realised that it’s useless to panic
Protasevich acknowledged the fizzling of the protests, which were fuelled by Lukashenko’s re-election to a sixth term in an August vote that was widely seen as rigged. They drew up to 200,000 people but died down over winter amid the brutal crackdown by Lukashenko, with more than 35,000 people arrested and thousands beaten.
“Now we need to abandon … the street activity we had before, those formats in which we worked,” Protasevich said. “Because there is simply no such activity now, and there can’t be any now.”
He said the opposition should wait for an economic downturn to mount a new challenge.
“We need to wait until the economic situation worsens … and people take to the street for a bowl of soup, to put it bluntly,” he said.
Lukashenko has defended the flight diversion as a legitimate response to the bomb threat, and Wednesday’s broadcast appeared designed to back the contention that the Belarusian authorities were unaware Protasevich was aboard.
In the video, Protasevich described seeing heavily armed special forces waiting as the plane taxied to a parking spot.
“It was a dedicated SWAT unit – uniforms, flak jackets and weapons,” he said.
The journalist said he disclosed his travel plans in a chat with associates 40 minutes before his departure. He alleged that the bomb threat could have been issued by someone with whom he had a personal conflict, but didn’t elaborate.
Protasevich alleged that the person – whom he didn’t identify – had links with opposition-minded hackers who have attacked official Belarusian websites and issued bomb threats in the past.
“The first thing I thought was that I have been set up,” he said. “When the plane was on a landing path, I realised that it’s useless to panic.”
Protasevich also said that some time before the flight he had a rift with Franak Viachorka, an adviser to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the main opposition candidate in the August presidential election.
Asked about the video, Viachorka said Protasevich now is “a hostage under pressure” and insisted they have friendly ties.
Protasevich also said in the video that he tried to stay away from his girlfriend after the landing, hoping authorities wouldn’t arrest her. Sofia Sapega didn’t feature in the new TV programme, but she was shown in a video from prison last week, confessing to running a channel that revealed personal data about Belarusian security officers.
Protasevich ran a widely popular channel on the Telegram messaging app that played a key role in helping organise the anti-government protests and has been charged with inciting mass disturbances – accusations that carry a 15-year prison sentence.
Meanwhile, the security services of Russia and Belarus on Thursday said they will cooperate more closely to counter what they said were the West’s “aggressive policies”.
Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, and the Belarusian Committee for State Security, known as the KGB, made the announcement in identical statements after their heads met in Belarus.
“In the spirit of traditional brotherly ties, Russia’s SVR and Belarus’s KGB agreed to conduct joint work to counter the destructive activity of the West aimed at destabilising the political and socio-economic situation across the Union State,” the statements said.
SVR chief Sergei Naryshkin and KGB head Ivan Tertel stressed the “importance of consolidating efforts” to respond to global challenges and new threats, the security services said.
Russia and Belarus are part of a “union state” that links their economies and militaries. The countries have been discussing a closer integration as both of their ties with the West go from bad to worse.
Lukashenko has for years had a volatile relationship with Moscow, playing it off against the West and ruling out outright unification with Russia. But he has pivoted closer to the Kremlin since the breakout of historic protests after the disputed election.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
