El País: Moscow will probably not support Belarusian dictator at elections

A Spanish newspaper thinks Russia has allies in the Belarusian state security agencies.

El País writes about an unprecedented maneuver: the Kremlin used television to humiliate the Belarusian ruler and bring serious accusations to him. The NTV documentary film portrays Lukashenka as a dictator who likes Hitler and is suspected of disappearance and killings of his main political opponents, the paper writes adding that NTV is owned by Gazprom and controlled by the Kremlin, as other Russian national channels, Inopressa.ru reports.

Correspondent Pilar Bonet stresses that it was the first time when a Russian state-run channel has given a detailed account of suspecting Lukashenka in connection with disappearance and death of certain political figures, journalists, and businessmen in Belarus. The film was shown before the summit in Astana, where the leaders of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan signed the customs code of the Customs Union. Belarus was delaying its joining the Union due to a gas dispute with Gazprom, the newspaper notes.

The statement that the materials used belong to the Belarusian secret services suggests that Moscow probably have allies in the Belarusian state security agencies and won’t support Lukashenka at the presidential elections scheduled for February 2011, the author of the article supposes. Moreover, the film tells that Lukashenka’s political weight and relative stability of Belarus provided due to the union with Russia, which paid a high price for that, 52 billion dollars during 15 years. The English-language state-run channel Russia Today showed a story in Sunday titled “The last dictator in Europe” calling Lukashenka a dubious figure.

“To dispel possible doubts in Kremlin’s intention to separate ‘bad’ and ‘good’ allies Russian president Medvedev presented president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev a copy of the documentary shot by Russian TV on occasion of his 70th anniversary,” the appear concludes.