"The Kremlin Doesn't Believe Lukashenko Will Hold On To Power."

It is possible to change the regime in Belarus in two weeks.

The new book of the famous historian and publicist Yuri Felshtinsky "Natallia Radzina's Belarus: Journalist vs. Dictator" was presented at the Berlin Book Fair Berlin Bebelplatz.

The meeting, which took place on May 2 in the Gallery of the Kunstschule Berlin, was attended by the author of the book, Yuri Felshtinsky, and the editor-in-chief of the website Charter97.org, Natallia Radzina. The moderator was the well-known political scientist Alexander Morozov.

"It is enough to look at the map"

At the beginning of the presentation Yuri Felshtinsky spoke about how he became interested in Belarus:

- It is absolutely not accidental that so many of my books, which turned out to be of high quality and interesting, have co-authors. Whenever I plunge into a completely new topic, I need a co-author to help me understand the essence of the problem. There was the book "FSB blows up Russia", written together with Alexander Litvinenko, there was "Corporation" with Vladimir Pribylovsky. And this is the kind of co-author Natallia Radzina became, because the book is based on an interview with her.

Why was I interested in Belarus? Since 2014 we have been fighting over a tragic problem that has become part of our lives: how to stop the war in Ukraine, destroy Putin's regime and return to the peaceful state we used to be in.

I believe that since 2000, power in Russia has been seized by the state security as an agency. These people have been fighting for power for decades, literally since 1918, and they will not give up this power. And our problems, accordingly, are not related to Putin, but to the current Russian leadership, which is mostly made up of state security. Why is this important to understand? Because the task of overthrowing the Putin regime is quite difficult.

Since Russia has nuclear weapons, not everyone is in a hurry to engage in an open battle with it. To understand what should be done, it is enough to look at the map: Belarus is the most important strategic territory. How can we make the current Europe be able to sleep peacefully? The current Europe will be able to sleep peacefully only if Belarus is liberated from the Russian Federation. Regime change in Belarus and liberation from Lukashenko is no less important than stopping the war in Ukraine, because, in fact, one cannot happen without the other.

Natallia Radzina told why she agreed to become the protagonist of the book by a famous American writer:

- All my life I had to tell everyone about my own country for a very long time, because no matter where I went, they knew very little about Belarus. I started traveling probably since 1997, when I was 18 years old. As it turned out, many people abroad don't know the name of my country, not to mention that Belarusians are absolutely European original people with their great history, language and culture. Nobody knew about it.

Thirty years have passed, and today we see that the stereotypical attitude to Belarus remains. What do people know about it? Lukashenko, Belovezhskaya Pushcha, "Pesnyary", potatoes, draaniki. More recently - IT, but this story almost ended in 2020, when Lukashenko dispersed mass rallies against election fraud. Now the IT business has practically left Belarus.

With this book, we want to try to hook people so that they just learn that there is such a country and people who are fighting for their freedom, dreaming of living in a democratic, independent state.

The editor-in-chief of Charter97.org says she also discovered Belarus in her time:

- I was born in 1979 in Kobrin in western Belarus, and it was the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic. I was quite a Soviet child, a pioneer, listening to these fairy tales about Grandpa Lenin, but on the other hand, I can't say that I really liked the country I lived in, because my family was very sober about the Soviet Union. My father was never in the Communist Party, although he was in the military. In the family I always heard a critical attitude towards the Soviet government. When the USSR collapsed, it was happy news for our family.

We managed to regain our independence, of course, a lot of things changed, including before Lukashenko came to power in 1994. We still had three years of the so-called "Belarusian revival", when the Belarusian language returned, which became the only state language, we regained our national symbols, we had a free independent parliament and democratic elections. Those were three years of normal life. After Lukashenko came to power, everything began to turn back. We were under occupation again.

I was 17 years old in 1996, and I realized that we were beginning a new stage of struggle for our freedom and independence. Through this book we tried to show how the struggle of the Belarusians is going on.

It hasn't stopped all 32 years while Lukashenko is in power. Even now, when the situation is very difficult due to the war Russia is waging against Ukraine, this struggle does not stop.

"There can't be a neutral Belarus"

Natallia Radzina considers the main goal of Belarusians is to get away from the influence of Russia:

- I have already said many times about the occupation by Russia. I hope that Russia will become a normal democratic state and leave us alone. The goal of Belarus is to get out from under Russian influence.

There is only one way out for us - to become a part of the European Union and NATO bloc. Otherwise, we won't get out from under the influence of Russia, because when you are between two large state entities, you have to join someone. There can't be a neutral Belarus.

Definitely, we will have to maintain some normal relations, but in order for them to be normal, Russia must stop being an empire. I hope that will eventually happen. I don't think that Russians are all zombified by propaganda, that they all want to go to war against their neighbors.

Alexander Morozov asked Yuri Felshtinsky, who has written a number of books on intelligence services, whether the KGB in Belarus is the same force as the FSB in Russia. The American historian believes that in Belarus we are dealing with a classic dictatorship:

- If it's quite difficult to change the regime in Russia, then in Belarus, I think, to change the government, if we take, say, the capabilities of the Ukrainian security services, is a matter of a two-week operation. This is without exaggeration. The events of 2020 in Belarus have demonstrated to the whole world that Lukashenko has no support. It simply does not exist.

There is, of course, the support of the Russian Federation, but it is a two-edged stick. Russia, of course, considers Belarus its fiefdom. The Russian Federation has used and plans to use Belarus as a springboard for attacking Europe and eternal blackmail.

It is not by chance that the 2022 invasion of Ukraine began with the concentration of Russian troops in Belarus, and the direction of the main strike was Kiev.

Today Russia has not risked moving troops to Belarus, although there has been a lot of talk about it (we remember Lukashenko's threatening statements about Poland, the words of Russian propagandists that preventive strikes on Europe will be launched from Belarus), because Russia does not trust Lukashenko completely, does not believe in the dictator's ability to hold power. Ukrainian operations, such as the invasion of the Kursk region or Operation Spider's Web, have actually demonstrated the serious capabilities of the Ukrainian army. And I have been saying for quite some time that Russia loses this war if it loses control over Belarus.

I think there is no other scenario here. And the fact that a dictator is in power in the center of Europe is a serious historical failure of European states.

"Belarus has always been oriented towards the West"

Natallia Radzina answered the question about the future of Belarus. She sees our country as part of the united Europe:

- The European Union is not going anywhere, moreover, in the current struggle for hegemony, the unexpected winner may become not China, but the European Union. Some regional unions may exist, but the main processes will take place inside the EU.

Belarus will not become a part of Russia. Mentally, we are really absolutely different people. The Belarusian nation emerged as a result of mixing Baltic and Slavic tribes, that's why we are called the fourth Baltic country. We want to return to Europe, where we have always been. This book tells very briefly where Belarus originated from, what formations the Belarusian territory was in. Our history comes from the Polotsk Principality, then the territory of Belarus was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and on this we base our identity today.

Then we were part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, at the division of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the end of the 18th century Belarus became part of the Russian Empire. For hundreds of years we were at war with Russia - both the GDL and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Belarus is watered with blood, a lot of evil came from the Russian kingdom. I don't think that Russia will be preserved in the future, because we can't be a prison of nations in the 21st century. I am sure that Belarus will eventually get rid of Moscow's influence.

Yuri Felshtinsky said that for him, as an American historian, the West-centricity of Belarusians was also a big discovery:

- Belarus has always been oriented to the West, not to the East. For some reason, there has always been such an understanding about the Baltic States, but not about Belarus. I think that as a result of this war, Russia will remain on the map, but it will disintegrate, and in the best scenario for us, it will finally stop being an empire and can then finally become a normal country if it gets rid of imperial thinking.

I don't think that this is a quick and easy process, and I don't count on it. I believe that if Belarus becomes part of Europe and, accordingly, part of the European Union, it will be possible to finally create a buffer zone from Finland to Ukraine with the support of the Ukrainian AFU. And this buffer, including Belarus, will create an opportunity for Europe to coexist peacefully with the Russian Federation.

Triple Olympic medalist, world and European champion in swimming Alexandra Gerasimenya, whose interview is also included in the book, said why she considers "Natallia Radzina's Belarus" important to read:

- For me it was also a very interesting experience. I believe that this book is important for every Belarusian. In it, everyone who is invested in the struggle of Belarusians will find themselves, their history, emotions and experiences. I think that this is a future textbook on the history of our country. Many thanks to Yury for calling me to give an interview for this book. I believe that every Belarusian should read it.

At the end of the presentation, Natallia Radzina urged to remain optimistic and expressed confidence that Russia would lose the war with Ukraine and Belarus would become free:

- I look at what is happening in Russia, and I really see that things are very bad there. Don't pump yourself up with pessimistic thoughts right now.

The fact that they've started shutting down the internet in Russia means that it's, pardon the expression, completely fucked. Putin is well aware that he is losing the information war and knows what the mood is like. He is afraid to announce a new mobilization, and the economy is a disaster. The Russian Federation is waiting for collapse. I saw the collapse of the Soviet Union, and I will see the collapse of Russia.

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