Valery Karbalevich: Lukashenka Is Nervous Fearing Rebellion

Karpenkou did not get the signal "from above" well.

Aliaksandr Lukashenka urged Belarusian enforcers and military "not to be fascinated by Wagner."

Political scientist Valery Karbalevich believes that in this way the dictator carefully and gently "levelled Mikalai Karpenkou", who had previously praised the fighters of the Wagner PMC.

"Mainly Mikalai Karpenkou promoted the Wagner PMC. In recent months, there has been a stir in the independent media around him: he often appears on TV and scares people," said Valery Karbalevich, a political observer of Radio Liberty, in a commentary to Salidarnasc.

Therefore, this speech by Lukashenka put everything in its place, demonstrating that Karpenkou is a bad politician. He does not catch the impulses coming from above.

The problem of a laudatory policy towards Wagner's fighters, the political scientist believes, is that the Wagnerites in the minds of the political elite of Belarus and Russia are rebels who rebelled against Putin.

"Their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin paid for this. Active promotion of the Wagnerites under these conditions demonstrates a total absence of understanding of what's behind this.

The fact that Lukashenka invited the Wagnerites to Belarus was an on-the-spot decision to resolve the crisis in Russia.

The question was what to do with Wagner PMC because it was dangerous to have it in Russia. The only option was Belarus. That is, there was a forced step that Lukashenka took.

When the Wagnerites arrived in Belarus, there was a problem of what to do with them next. After all, their appearance did not cause much enthusiasm among either the Belarusian security forces or the Belarusian society. It was also uncomfortable for Lukashenka — if they once rebelled against Putin, they can rebel against Lukashenka as well.

According to Karbalevich, Lukashenko made serious efforts to justify the presence of the Wagnerites in Belarus. First, it was stated that they were in the country temporarily, then — that they would train Belarusian troops.

Yes, it seems that some instructors appeared, but then it turned out that the Wagner Group was not in the structures of the Ministry of Defence, but in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. This is also strange because the Wagner PMC is an organization created to wage war.

It is logical if they were instructors in the units of the Ministry of Defence, and they found themselves in the units of the internal troops, which are not designed to wage war against an external enemy, but for internal hostilities: civilians and protesters. What are the Wagnerits doing here?

It can also be noted here that Lukashenka tried to frighten his neighbours with the Wagnerites. He used them once when he talked about "an excursion to Poland", but then tried to take that back: they say they are not going anywhere, and they are going to leave Belarus altogether.

Against this background, Lukashenka did not like the attempt to promote the Wagner PMC. Lukashenka was about to talk about the impending "rebellion of the opposition", and then the rebels turn out to be heroes. Of course, he did not like it, and he cautiously, in a soft form, put Karpenkou in his place," Valery Karbalevich believes.