Andrei Sannikov: It’s Necessary To Warn Putin That Strike On Kremlin Will Become Answer

How the West should respond to the nuclear blackmail of two dictators.

Andrei Sannikov, the leader of the European Belarus Civil Campaign gave an interview to Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, a well-known Polish business newspaper. Translation - Charter97.org.

The opposition politician and former political prisoner spoke about Belarusian prison traditions, conditions of detention in Lukashenka's dungeons, the rebellion of the head of Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus.

– What is a prisoner's cake?

– It’s a blow to the liver - there is so much fat and sugar. I learned what it was when I was in the Volodarka pre-trial detention center, located in the Pishchalauski Castle. Behind its bars was Józef Piłsudski, on the way to Siberia, and Boris Savinkov was there [he killed the Minister of the Interior of Tsarist Russia in 1904, Vyacheslav von Plehve - Ed.].

– This prison has traditions.

– Relatives of prisoners send them parcels with biscuits. Biscuits often come crumbled. Sometimes guards intentionally crumble it to make it unfit for consumption. But prisoners are smart. Nobody throws anything away, so they collect these crumbs in a bag, add margarine or butter. This is a serious ritual. Let's say, two prisoners are sitting, grinding the remains of cookies and crackers into a sweet crumb. The other two are mixing margarine. The third prepares other sweets that are on hand.

They make two or three layers of cake covered with condensed milk with all these. If they want it to be really tasty, they make milk jam when boiling condensed milk, always in a closed jar. It turns out to be a hardened mass, similar to jam or cream. They cover it with chocolate, raisins, dried fruits and nuts. You can also get pomegranate seeds or something fresh from large.

– Is this an everyday pleasure?

– Oh no, only on big holidays.

– Was the release of one of the prisoners such a case?

– If there is no signed release decision, this is not the case. It's a bad omen.

– How do criminals treat political prisoners?

– It depends on how you behave. As they say, you are "for your own" or "for the people." If you are selfish and care only about yourself, then you will be treated badly. If you are “for the people”, then the prisoners appreciate it.

I went on a hunger strike during my imprisonment. The hunger strike actually lasted 15 minutes. But all the prisoners were involved. There was an issue with the administrator of the dining facility. One “prowler” came out [in the prison hierarchy, this is the first step above the “muzhik” (man), a simple prisoner – Ed.] and went on a hunger strike at lunchtime. About 100 people came to the dining room and sat at tables. We received our porridge. At some point, everyone stood up and looked with curiosity to see what I would do. I got up too. The administration ordered everyone to return to the barracks. But the administrator of the dining facility was removed.

– That is, even there in Belarus, the protest has a chance of success.

– Sure. The next time, Ira [Iryna Khalip, a journalist, the wife of Andrei Sannikov - Ed.] interviewed me about the conditions in the colony when she visited me. The publication of her article caused serious problems for me, the guards began to put strong pressure on me. However, a lot of the prisoners read this newspaper issue in the prison camp. I have earned great respect. It was joyful when I came out of quarantine [it’s an obligatory procedure when getting into a prison camp - Ed.] to the squad and heard them shouting: “Long Live Belarus!”

Some people hid leaflets of my election campaign in their cell rooms. Once they even brought me a radio receiver and I listened to Radio Liberty on short waves. The most important thing is your behavior. I didn't hide anything and I was honest. I told others: if you want to rat on me, then you can, I understand that you can benefit from this, but tell the truth, do not lie, because otherwise, it will be worse for me and for you too.

– Did you feel support from the outside during your imprisonment?

– Yes, sure. Solidarity was huge in 2011. So many letters, so many people helped...

My son still has shelves filled with plush toys that were brought to him. After being beaten in custody, I ended up in a KGB hospital. It's a closed place, there were no ordinary lieutenants. And the woman who worked there, the wife of some bigwig in the KGB, walked past me and whispered: "Please hold on."

– Are there sane people in the prison administration?

– Obviously. There were also those who were afraid of publicity. They were annoyed by the comments under articles in the media. People were indicating the surnames of the guards. One day a guard called me and said: "Ask your wife to insult us less." I said that my wife has nothing to do with this, the people treated them like that.

The "Prison Telegraph" works flawlessly. In addition, civilian employees work in each prison colony. They come to work and then return home. There is a ban on the dissemination of information, but everyone has colleagues, family, neighbors and various information from the colony is easily disseminated.

That is why political prisoners are now so often placed in solitary confinement. For several weeks now there has been no information about Babaryka and Mikalai Statkevich. Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk was taken from Rechytsa to Minsk for 18 days, where they are going to forcibly examine her in a psychiatric hospital. I recently spoke with Maryna Adamovich, Mikalai Statkevich's wife. Even information that her husband ended up in a punishment cell is good for her. At least she knows he's alive.

– When you were in prison, there were 42 political prisoners in Belarus. Then it seemed like a lot. Now there are several thousand.

– In 2020, there was a revolution, the preparation for it started in the 1990s. In 2010, an uprising broke out, which the authorities suppressed and imprisoned two thousand. Most of them came out after a few days. Lukashenka used the remaining 42 political prisoners for trade with the West.

And in 2020, there was a revolution that began with the COVID-19 pandemic. Lukashenka did everything so that as many people as possible died. He needed no pensioners. We called for a lockdown, but the authorities did nothing. The number of deaths is still classified. People realized that the authorities were killing them, and began to act.

– Why did the 2020 protests fail?

– Because at first they [Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya's entourage - Ed.] called the people not to take to the streets, and then some young people from Telegram channels began to control those who went out. They called for senseless running around the city. The KGB was not also involved there.

There were almost no police in the city on August 16. It was possible to do anything: to capture prisons, government buildings, television. I have a friend, Dzmitry Bandarenka, the best specialist in street protests. As soon as he offered something to these "telegrammers", they did the opposite.

– If the protesters were more decisive, the Kremlin would have sent tanks.

– I've been hearing this argument for 20 years now. Nothing like this would have happened.

– Would Vladimir Putin betray Lukashenka?

– He would have sold him like everyone else. Another thing is that he would then try to influence the developments. However, when in the 70s the Poles began to protest, you did not look back at Moscow. If Putin had entered, he would have started the occupation. And then the power structures would support the people. In 2020, the regime effectively cut off the street from resistance leaders. Even before the elections, Statkevich, Pavel Seviarynets, Siarhei Tsikhanouski were imprisoned. There were only hipsters who had no idea about the protests. And Tsikhanouskaya, who left the country at the most crucial moment. She couldn't do it.

– If she had stayed, she herself would have served several years, like her husband or Statkevich.

– No, the people would protect her. No one knew her before, but people voted for her. If Tsikhanouskaya had said she was in danger, hundreds of thousands of people would have followed her in August. It would force the regime to negotiate. Only her departure allowed the repression to begin. There was potential, the marches continued until the spring of 2021.

– Russian nuclear weapons were sent to Belarus. Putin, all the more, will not leave the country.

– Putin has shown how weak he is. Not only to his own Chekists, but also to the Chini which supported him.

Yevgeny Prigozhin's rebellion must be considered from the point of view of prison logic.

These are three bandits: Prigozhin, Putin and Lukashenka. Prigozhin considered that Putin was weak and demanded the removal of idiots like Sergei Shoigu. Putin thought that Prigozhin was bluffing, just as he had before when he threatened to leave Bakhmut if he did not receive ammunition. Putin no longer exists, as a result. He will not wash away this weakness. It was interesting to observe how the Wagnerites were welcomed in Rostov-on-Don. Not because they are murderers, but because everyone understands that it is time to end the war. Enough coffins. According to interspecies logic, Prigozhin is to be killed. Once I argued with a friend about the future fate of Ruslan Bashirov and Aleksandr Petrov [the operational names of military intelligence officers who tried to kill Sergei Skripal in Salisbury - ed.]. He claimed that they were about to get into the Duma. I said they would be killed.

– And who was right?

– It turned out I was right. No one has heard about them since then because they failed the mission. By the way, I'm not sure that nuclear weapons will actually appear in Belarus. There is no place to keep the nukes, and yet I was engaged in this [Sannikov negotiated the withdrawal of nuclear weapons as the Deputy Foreign Minister of Belarus - Ed.].

There was one facility in Kolasava, but it is impossible to bring it to working condition quickly. The Americans have recently stated that the use of these weapons by the Russians is not excluded. Yuri Felshtinsky argues that this will happen, but the weapons won't be used against Ukraine, but against Poland or the Baltic countries.

They held the Zapad 2009 exercise and trained a nuclear attack on Warsaw with a breakthrough of the front by tank columns towards Kaliningrad in order to cut off the Balts from the rest of Europe. But Belarus does not need nuclear weapons for this. Weapons near Kaliningrad are enough for this.

In 2009, the West did nothing. Still, Putin needs some punch in his face in such situations, because he often bluffs. This is a rate increase that can be dealt with. Signal that the answer to this development will be a strike on the Kremlin. The Americans are now at least closely following developments. It is not enough to talk about "concern", and, of course, one should not say, as is customary in the West, that "it will never do something." It is better to remain silent than to mark the “red lines”.

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