Death of Shishov and Special Services of Belarus: Important Tip Received

Ukraine needs to consider responsive measures against the Lukashenka regime.

There have been many signals about the deterioration of relations between Belarus and Ukraine since August 2020, and things have been escalating since then. Problems in bilateral relations are escalating. They are related to the internal political situation in Belarus and the sanctions against that country. It naturally contributes to tensions in relations with Belarus. In addition, the incident that happened a few months ago with the Ryanair plane that landed in Minsk caused a new wave of problems.

The death of Vitaliy Shishov may be a similar signal. Of course, we are now only talking about suspicions, because we have to wait for the results of the investigation. But today many politicians, both in the European Union and in our country, have already commented on the situation. There are fears that it could be a special action against one of the Belarusian opposition leaders in Ukraine.

Ukraine, together with Poland and Lithuania, has become one of the countries with the largest number of Belarusian emigrants. One can assume that the Belarusian special services, given their methods of work, may act against one or another opposition leader in our country. So this is one of the main versions to investigate now.

It is still an open question whether those who may have been involved can be found or not. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to find those responsible on the spot. Moreover, if the representatives of the security services have worked here. It is crucial to understand that they often act without leaving traces. Therefore, we cannot yet say for certain who is responsible for this tragedy. If at least partially or indirectly the version about the involvement of representatives of special services of the neighbouring country is confirmed, it will cause additional problems in bilateral relations.

Let's be realistic, there are no methods to keep every refugee safe. Risks exist for significant figures - those who can arouse the increased interest of the Lukashenka regime and the special activity of the special services of the neighbouring country. There were already alarming signals in the situation of Shishov, as representatives of the Belarusian House said that he was allegedly under surveillance.

Our law enforcement bodies and special services, for instance, the SSU, should investigate situations if such facts become known. If we are talking about political figures, representatives of the government, when there is a threat of an assassination attempt, they will be given state protection. I do not know what the procedure might have been in this case. Only lawyers can answer the question. But I think both our law enforcement agencies and special services should develop a special protocol and methodology to deal with such a situation, because it may happen again.

Of course, control also needs strengthening. Again, I should stress that there is no absolute guarantee. We know of incidents when Russian opposition members were killed in European countries such as the UK and Germany, which are countries with powerful security services. Therefore, Ukraine cannot give guarantees either, but a special protocol and method of response require development. Perhaps, to strengthen control at the border to minimize the risks of such situations.

If suspicions are confirmed, it will not be a question of severing diplomatic relations. After all, after the events of 2014, Ukraine has not even severed them with Russia. In my opinion, it would be absolutely wrong to impose any economic sanctions to the detriment of our country because we have quite a large volume of bilateral trade with Belarus. Unfortunately, we are more dependent on Belarus for some commodity items. Somewhere they depend on us, and somewhere we do. Therefore, we should not hurt ourselves here; we should act rationally.

If God forbid, our fears are confirmed, we need to think about our response. First, we can talk about tougher sanctions to those structures of the Belarusian government that may be involved in this, i.e. personal sanctions. This is the traditional reaction to such incidents. The set of sanctions should be determined depending on the situation. As a rule, these are diplomatic sanctions if we act by analogy with what the UK, Germany and the Czech Republic did. Second, stricter requirements for controlling the activities of representatives of the Belarusian state on our territory. And this is only the minimum.

Vladimir Fesenko, Novoe Vremya