Putin Prepares Russia’s Collapse

Who will remove Lukashenka?

Will the Belarusian army enter the war? That's how Putin, the "wonder manager", is ruining Russia. Why hasn't Ukraine achieved military success? How do Houthi attacks affect the war in Ukraine? Who can plot against Lukashenka?

Dzmitry Bandarenka, coordinator of the European Belarus Civil Campaign, spoke about this in the Week Results show on the Malanka YouTube channel.

Charter97.org has prepared a transcript of the conversation.

— We will not discuss the topic of political prisoners with you today in this short conversation, because we discussed this in detail (both about Alexei Navalny and about Belarusian prisoners of conscience) in an interview that will be released next week.

I would like to ask now some of the questions that I had prepared but did not have time to ask. Let's start with this strange story with some saboteurs. Lukashenka announced a counter-terrorist operation in the Lelchytsa district [of Belarus - Ed.]. What does this story remind you of? I watched a video with these people, whom they impersonate as saboteurs, their photos. In my opinion, these are people who either just crossed the border illegally, or ordinary smugglers, whom they detained and decided to play this card.

— They say there were three of them.

– Yes. Two Ukrainians and one Belarusian.

– Yes. But in fact — tens of thousands. We saw these penitential videos, and they were all called “extremists.” The word "extremist" means a saboteur to me. "Extremists", "terrorists" and so on — the enemies of the Lukashenka regime, and the list is endless.

We know that there are tens of thousands of Belarusians in "extremist groups", but still people are interested in "extremism". It seems to me that this is a manifestation of such hysteria of the regime, because there are millions of "extremists" in fact. The so-called extremists are those who disagree with the authorities. And not necessarily under political articles. We know that this includes the convicts under Article 328.

That's another "rat in the plumbing". There were many such campaigns, we remember the "breakthrough of the Ukrainian jeep" (we never saw it). But, unfortunately, the fate of the "saboteurs" is sad, if they are not fake people.

I don't see anything new. I know that there were real Ukrainian saboteurs in Belarus, it is known. And we know that drones are exploding on Russian territory, which, most likely, flew through Belarus and no one stopped them. This is exactly what Lukashenka is afraid of.

– Yes. Here you can recall the A-50 aircraft at the airbase in Machulishchi, which was also damaged during the sabotage. We raised this topic with Oleksiy Honcharenko today. He was in the first part of our stream, the People's Deputy of Ukraine. We talked about Avdiivka, the Ukrainian forces had to leave the village. So I will ask you in this regard. You said in one of your interviews a year ago that the situation in Belarus largely depends on what is happening at the front. On the successes or failures of the Ukrainian forces. Does the dragging of war, if it lasts for many years, mean no changes in Belarus?

I don’t know. Recently, I decided for myself, I've been thinking about it, talking to different people, probably, I do not believe in a direct military victory of Ukraine, but Russia is not at war only with Ukraine. Russia entered into a battle with the entire civilized world.

Only neutral support of China, North Korea, Iran gives it impudence, but these are specific thousands, tens of thousands of shells and the Shaheds. On the other hand, it is a battle of economies. There was a time when the Soviet Union, which was the second largest economy in the world (again, largely due to the production of tanks, atomic bombs, and so on), collapsed as a result of the activities of the Polish Solidarity and the war in Afghanistan. And today, the Russian economy in terms of gross domestic product in absolute prices is the 11th economy in the world, in terms of demography — not the third, like the Soviet Union, but only the ninth country. The longer the war in Ukraine goes on, the more pieces Russia will fall apart. Then, maybe, the Russian army will fight, and the Ukrainians will strike more serious blows. It seems to me that the key will be the economic defeat of Russia. When they ask for help with "Bush legs", or other food, there may be a conspiracy against Putin, and the oligarchs will ask: "Will you return something to us of this 300 billion frozen money and will we address the issues." But, of course, Ukrainians pay a colossal price with the lives of thousands of people, broken fates, territories, economy and everything. But Ukraine is not alone today, and it will win as a result of the common struggle. Most importantly, Ukraine has many good allies.

— The allies are good. But I would like them to quickly accept help, bypassing all this bureaucratic apparatus that exists in European states and not only. Let's imagine a situation. Suppose that we still live in the situation of war, but there is some force majeure with Lukashenka, we are all mortal. What are our options?

— There could have been no war at all if the Ukrainian leadership had supported the uprising of the Belarusian people in 2020. Because Ukraine has been aspiring to the European Union for a long time, this clause is in the Constitution, it is an associate member with the European Union, but in 2021, in 2020, there was a record trade with the Lukashenka regime. If strategic decisions had been made then, there could have been no war for Ukraine at all, the situation would have been completely different.

I recently talked to a friend of mine, a Ukrainian who understands security issues. He said: “This is our main strategic mistake that we did not help the Belarusians in 2020.” The situation of Lukashenka's death is not key, because it's like in prison: a change of owner, a change of boss in a prison...

—... may worsen detention conditions for prisoners.

— It will probably lead to some kind of distemper, but the Belarusians will again be active when they see the meaning of their activities, their struggle. This can be an option of Lukashenka's death, when he is removed by his own entourage. After all, there are also very rich people, billionaires, multimillionaires, and they do not like Lukashenka at all, they do not see prospects either for themselves or for their families. The situation is the same in Russia. If, for example, a thousand families used to earn huge money in the Russian Federation, and today a hundred earned from the war, then the rest just lost.

The scale is far below in Belarus, of course, but there are people who have something to lose, who understand that if they do not remove Lukashenka, then tomorrow they will finally be out of the game. They can support pseudo-oppositionists, some people were recruited in prisons, but if they do not remove Lukashenka, they simply will not exist, they will have no grounds, they will be a gang that accompanied the Fuhrer to the last day.

I think that these more thoughtful businessmen will at some point remove Lukashenka with a sad ending for him. And this is a slightly different situation. In this situation, the Belarusians will be naturally engaged. If this is a natural death: fall when skiing. However, I do not really believe that this will be such a key to resolving the situation in the region. Because the Belarusian situation today is part of a regional and even global problem.

— Also, from your words, you called three such elements that can quickly end the war — courage, valor, courage of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, assistance with NATO weapons and sanctions. Now we are just approaching the second anniversary of the full-scale invasion. Which of these three elements turned out to be the weak link, which sagged?

— Weapons supplies. The incredible offensive of Ukrainians in the Kherson region, the liberation of Kherson on the right side of the Dnipro River and the liberation of most, almost the entire Kharkiv region — this was caused precisely by HIMARS supplies, which were able to complicate the logistics of Russians. Obviously, it was necessary to supply longer-range missiles to these weapons. I do not see the logic of why America did not do this. After all, there would be a different dynamic. No matter how many mines there were, no matter how deep the Russians dug in, if they had nothing to eat, if they did not have shells, ammunition, manpower — Russia would be in a completely different situation. Thus, this support was needed like air in order to develop success. However, time has passed. That's probably the key point.

It is difficult to achieve compliance with sanctions from all businessmen, there is no "world police" that monitors all the sanctions. However, we see that revenues from the sale of gas and oil decreased by a third, exports to Europe decreased threefold. It's still working step by step. But there are still opportunities to strengthen sanctions, and it is also necessary to supply long-range missiles.

— TAURUS, ATACMS and so on.

– Correct. This will decide the fate of the war. There are other, I think, methods of economic influence. For example, the tanker fleet. Muslim world friends have helped Russia. The Houthis are hitting fuelers with crude oil and petroleum products from Russia to India with missiles, and this lengthens the path.

Imagine, from Novorossiysk, they immediately went to the Mediterranean Sea, turned left, passed through the Suez Canal, and there is India. They have to sail to Gibraltar, around Africa, today. Prices will be different, these should be other ships, because not all vessels can withstand a storm in the Atlantic Ocean or in the south, between Antarctica and Africa. These actions of the Houthis can radically change the situation on the Ukrainian front, because the conflict is global.

— Is it worth waiting for an attack from the territory of Belarus in 2024?

— I do not exclude this. The Russians carried out such a thing as "covert mobilization". At first, they said that they would change the draft age from 18-27 years to 21-30. But then they said: no, young guys want it early.

— As a result, the upper limit was raised, and the lower was left.

– Right. Let's recall Viktor Suvorov and his book "M Day", this means that Russia received at least 300,000 people for six periods.

— In every call or in every year?

— In every call. Conscription every six months. They can get 300,000 people. This is already happening unnoticed. No one says that "we are recruiting volunteers", "there is a reserve for up to two million". When people join the army, it is easier to process them so that they become contract servicemen, that is, suiciders.

Recruitment of convicts continues with even no Wagner Group. I even heard such stories that just in prison the heating was turned off for a while, so the number of volunteers increased significantly. I heard from people who literally experienced it, but did not go. Then there are emigrants from Central Asian states who obtained citizenship. Now they get caught. We heard that there was a raid on 3,000 people who received passports. "It's time to join the army."

— To repay the debt.

— And whether you are the right age or the wrong age is another matter. There are other mechanisms. However, Viktor Suvorov says: if you have switched to the war mode, then your civilian economy will collapse.

As for China (I have already quoted this image), it is a tiger, it slowly begins to bite the heels of this Russian hunter who decided to shoot at Ukraine. Russia is already knocking his gun in pain, and shooting.

I can say that Russia has already leased huge territories to China, that is, this "Chinese tiger" is actually "eating" it. But Russia is still sick with leprosy. Patients with leprosy often do not feel pain, they are disfigured, but may feel no pain. It seems to me that Russia finds itself in this kind of situation. In this regard, Putin is a "wonder manager". Because he lost all the directions. The threat of the Muslim World constitutes very bad relations and an open border. The main threat is China, which claims the territory and annexes it. And Putin says, "No, it's our partner."

North Korea. Once Boris Nemtsov said: "Be aware, this missile may fall somewhere near Vladivostok." "Successful operation" in the Baltic Sea, where again the threat loomed over the city of Lenin, the city of Petra, because there NATO can bombard St. Petersburg with conventional artillery systems.

All this, of course, is achieved by the courage of the Ukrainian people, the courage of the army, incredible losses, but Ukrainians are not going to give up. Even if the Russians think that they will seize new territories, I will say that the Soviet Union once occupied Afghanistan. What's the result? In the modern world, you cannot hold the lands and peoples of those countries that do not want to live the way you see it. And so Putin strategically doomed Russia to defeat.

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