Portnikov: Lukashenka Is No Different From Putin By His Position

The appearance of the movie-libel about the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine on the Belarusian Television is quite natural for an authoritarian regime.

The Belarusian authorities are hostile to any protest movements in the society, both in Ukraine and in Belarus.

Famous Ukrainian journalist Vitaliy Portnikov has said this to the Charter97.org.

- The official Belarusian TV-channel BT showed a propagandistic report, in which they, in particular, stated that most heroes of the Heavenly Hundred died by the hands of their own comrades, who shot them in the back during the protest actions in Kyiv in 2014. How can you assess such statement, coming from the main state TV-channel of the neighbouring country?

- I don’t see anything sensational in such position of the Belarusian TV-propagandists.

We are very well aware that the Belarusian leadership have reacted in a very negative way to any protest movements aimed against the existing authorities in any country, since 1990s.

In this sense, Aliaksandr Lukashenka is no different from Russian president Vladimir Putin by his position.

Because Lukashenka has always been the politician who tried to establish the legitimacy of the power of the head of state as a system-forming one. And, just like Russian President Boris Yeltsin and President of Chechnya Jokhar Dudayev, he was the first post-Soviet ruler who destroyed his parliament in order to strengthen his power.

Therefore, it seems absolutely clear that he couldn’t possibly like the events which happened in Maidan in 2004, or in 2012 and 2014, as it undermined the very basics of the “legitimacy” of the Belarusian regime.

Not as a “constitutional” regime, not as a regime where the power is based on “the will of the people”, but as a regime where the power is based on some “ultimate force”. This is the difference between the power structure in Belarus and Russia and the one in Ukraine.

The appearance of such report on TV proves what we have known since long ago: the Belarusian authorities are hostile to any protest movements in the society, both in Ukraine and in Belarus.

This is totally natural: an authoritarian regime can have no other logic.