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Roman Protasevich, Casualty Of The Ryanair Incident In Belarus, Is Spilling The Beans
A TV documentary of the bomb threat against a Ryanair plan (vid) has confirmed our analysis of a false narrative which had been constructed by Belorussian regime change activists.
They had alleged that on May 23 a Ryanair plane had been forced by the Belorussian government to land in Minsk after which one activist on board, Roman Protasevich, had been arrested. But in reality a real bomb threat, delivered by email, had been received at Minsk airport as well as by Lithuanian air authorities. The plane was made aware of the threat by the Belorussian air traffic control and the pilot, after communicating with Ryanair management, had decided to land in Minsk.
Belarus handled the case by the book and the plane was released after it had been unsuccessfully searched for the alleged bomb. There were outstanding arrest warrants against two passengers on board, Roman Protasevich and his Russian girl friend Sofia Sapega. Both were detained after passing through the custom and passport controls.
Roman Protasevich had been betrayed. Other regime change activists, with whom he had disagreed, had sent the bomb threat email to get him trapped.
This is evident from his testimony in the later part of the TV documentary linked above, where he appears as a lively and engaged chain smoker.
A second Belorussian TV piece (vid), with a ninety minutes excerpt from a four hour long interview of Protasevich, was broadcast yesterday:
Former editor-in-chief of NEXTA Roman Protasevich interviewed the Belarusian state channel ONT. In it, he pleaded guilty in a criminal case to organizing and preparing actions that violate public order, and also criticized the Belarusian opposition and said he respected Alexander Lukashenko.
In the interview Protasevich is spilling the beans about the whole foreign financed opposition organization which was behind the 2020 color revolution attempt in Belarus.
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‘Western’ media, as well as other regime change activist claim that Protasevich must have been tortured to say what he says. However, aside from light handcuff marks at his wrists there is no evidence of that. Protasevich had previously been wounded when he fought in the fascist Ukrainian Azov battalion against the Donbas secessionists. He is a tough guy who will not be impressed by handcuffs which, by the way, police everywhere use for good reasons.
During the Korea war U.S. pilots, captured by China, admitted to dropping biological weapons on China. The U.S. long denied the use of biological weapons and claimed that the pilots had been tortured and made false confessions. Decades later secret files were released which proved that the claims the pilots had made had been correct.
At the beginning of the interview with Marat Markov, the head of the Belorussian state TV channel ONT, Protasevich is still somewhat tense. But after 3 or 4 minutes the talk develops into a lively exchange during which Protasevich at times interrupts and corrects the journalist. Protasevich’s voice sounds rough and at times pressed. He is a chain smoker and claims to have a cold. Towards the end, when they talk about the personal damage the color revolution attempt has caused to many, both get somewhat emotional but in no way hostile to each other.
Protasevich’s demeanor, engagement, body language and general attitude throughout the interview has me convinced that he doing it voluntarily and that he is telling the truth. He is not reading off a script someone else has written. He is doing a tell all about the foreign financed regime change effort he had been part of. And why not? He has been betrayed by his former comrades. He is now expecting up to fifteen years of jail. Telling it all might well help him to lessen the sentence for his crimes.
There are yet no English subtitles on the interview and there is no English language transcript of the interview. The following are excerpts from an eight part summary published in Russian language on Office Life. The text is machine translated:
Roman Protasevich on the air of the ONT TV channel on the program “Markov. Nothing personal”, said that he agreed to be interviewed completely voluntarily. But he noted that he had a little cold.
He added that it is difficult to predict how the opposition will react to the interview, and he would not be surprised to be called a traitor.
Protasevich stressed that he absolutely does not care what they say. He, according to him, just wants to do everything to correct his mistakes.
…
Roman Protasevich on the air of ONT suggested that information about his flight over Belarus could have been given by Daniil Bogdanovich, who was the project director.
Protasevich stressed that for the first time in a long time, he reported data on his movements to someone. He wrote about the flight from Athens in a chat, which includes Frank Viacorka and Daniil Bogdanovich. With the latter, Protasevich had a conflict. Roman claims that, in fact, behind his back on an online “phone call” it was said that he could be fired. He himself did not participate in the “call” due to poor communication at the hotel. His colleagues told him about the content.
Protasevich believes that it was Bogdanovich who could have initiated the possible dismissal.
During the interview, Roman also stressed that he had nothing to do with the Black Book of Belarus channel. He only held one workshop on how to make headlines, etc. Roman thinks that a lot of personal data was transferred to the channel by ex-security officials. Protasevich stressed that he had nothing to do with the publication of personal data.
The ‘black book’ is a Telegram channel used by the opposition to publish addresses and personal information about Belorussian policeman and their families.
Protasevich then gives some details ofn persons involved in the opposition operation and of their corruption. I will skip this here as most are unknown to me and of minor interest. These though are people we have heard of:
The interviewee also walked around Olga Karach. He said that she got her possession of a house with an area of 600 square meters. m in the elite area of Vilnius. Karach is trying to fight Tikhanovskaya for the money of the diaspora.
Protasevich added that Tikhanovskaya partly lives at the expense of the Lithuanian state, partly at the expense of some entrepreneurs. She is guarded by the Lithuanian special service.
Andrey Strizhak (BySol Foundation), according to Protasevich, is also not perfect. There were complaints against Strizhak, and they, according to Protasevich, “were clearly not unfounded”. That was when, according to Roman, there was money in the fund, and then it was gone.
In addition, Protasevich said that ByPol, in his opinion, is financed by Poland. Also, according to him, the Polish side gave 50 million zlotys to the Belarusian House in Warsaw.
Then follow details about the NEXTA Telegram channel which was used to direct last summer’s demonstrations and riots in Minsk. According to Protasevich that channel has a following in Belarus of 500,000 people “at most”.
Protasevich is trying to lower the potential sentence against him:
Roman Protasevich said on the air of ONT that he respects Alexander Lukashenko. At the same time, he believes that some of the decisions of this politician were erroneous.
Protasevich admitted that he “criticized Lukashenka a lot”.
He claims that he realized that many of the things for which the head of state was criticized were an element of pressure. According to Protasevich, Lukashenka acted like a man with eggs of steel.
The financing of the NEXTA channel (translated as ‘Nektha’) with its extensive staff is discussed next:
On the air of ONT, Roman Protasevich said that initially the Nekhta project (recognized as extremist in Belarus) lived on advertising. The posts cost “good money”: for example, $20 thousand. Protasevich’s salary could be $1.5 thousand. In August 2020, 5 thousand euros came out.
At some point, according to Protasevich, there was Russian funding: 3-5 thousand euros per week. The money came from a certain company from Russia, which, judging by the name, is associated with the Urals and mining.
Its owner is a well-known Russian oligarch, and he is a direct competitor of Mikhail Gutseriev. Protasevich did not give his last name, but perhaps he means a native of Minsk, Dmitry Mazepin, who actually now controls Uralkali.
Protasevich also said that it was allegedly planned to transfer one of the Nekhta channels to Russian hands.
Roman Protasevich also said that the split in the Nekhta team was due to the figure of the Belarusian political emigration Ales Zarembyuk, who, according to the journalist, used Putilo and the entire project as a “cash cow”.
Now, according to Protasevich, advertising does not appear on “Nekhta”, although there are more staff in the editorial office. This, in his opinion, means that someone is supporting the project.
The socialist Belarus has extensive potash resources. That a fertilizer oligarch in neo-liberal Russia is trying to get his hands on it via regime change and privatization is not astonishing.
The next part is about the military coup attempt against Lukashenko which unraveled two months ago:
Roman Protasevich said on the air of ONT that he allegedly almost became a liaison “between the conspirators and the headquarters of Tikhanovskaya.” That is, his role was to bring the headquarters together with the defendants in the case of the conspiracy against Lukashenka.
Protasevich claims that he had constant contacts with Dmitry Shchigelsky, who now lives in the United States and they allegedly have a lot in common. Unlike Alexander Feduta and Grigory Kostusev, Shchigelsky was not detained by the Belarusian special services.
Roman also assures that there are “sleeping cells” in Belarus of those who advocate a forceful scenario of overthrowing the current government.
Protasevich also claims that Frank Viacorka was not included in the project for the violent overthrow. Roman believes that he has “too long a tongue.”
According to Protasevich, the conspirators talked about some 20 military families who had to be evacuated from Belarus, and they wanted to get large sums from the BySol fund for them, but this did not work out. Protasevich believes that in reality these military men and their families are fiction.
Protasevich then talks about his time with Azov:
…
At the same time, Protasevich says that he was not officially on the staff of “Azov”, and not in business “he was mainly engaged in photography.” But he was indeed given a light machine gun. However, with him, according to Protasevich, he did not participate in any hostilities, and almost all the time “was at the base.” Roman also admits that he violated journalistic ethics.
In addition, Protasevich admitted that he is afraid of some kind of extradition (to which country, it is not clear) and hopes that Alyaksandr Lukashenka will have enough political will not to agree to extradition.
Roman claims that allegedly not so long ago he was on the verge of returning to Belarus himself. He stated that he was cooperating with the investigation and rethought a lot in life. At the end of the interview, Protasevich actually burst into tears. After that, they showed the already separately recorded commentary of the presenter, where he explained that in fact the interview lasted about four hours and not everything was aired on the air.
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Previous Moon of Alabama post on the Ryanair incident in Belarus:
“can you tell me how russia under putin works with these types of oligarchs – mikhail gutserijev and dmitry mazepin? it seems to me russia is run by oligarchs and putin has very little control over them..”
James @32
Under Yeltsin, the oligarchs owned the Russian state, and they shamelessly stripped assets out of enterprises yeltsin gave them, dodged taxes, and offshored the proceeds.
Russia was helpless, bankrupt, & dying off by 1m/yr.
Now, the State owns the oligarchs. Branko Milanovic below compares and contrasts:
https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/04/07/2019/oligarchs-and-oligarchs
Money quote:
“The Putin oligarchs are billionaires which “serve” at the discretion of the state. As a Russian commentator once said, they should all consider themselves to be temporary custodians of their wealth. If they fall from grace with the regime they could be stripped of their assets either through dubious legal proceedings, or if needed, more forcefully by being imprisoned.
The original kind of Yeltsin-type oligarchs, which “popularized” the term, were different. These oligarchs owned the state—so the state existed only at their discretion. At the peak of their power, after Yeltsin’s reelection in 1996 which they helped him win (in the deal that led to the infamous “loans for shares” trade) oligarchs, separately, controlled Yeltsin and practically most of the levers of state power. Since they also jockeyed for power amongst themselves with some being allied with the military, others controlling natural monopolies, and the third group having their own media, Russia at the end of the 1990s was a country on the verge of a civil war. It stood not so far from where Libya stands today. Under that “regime”, life expectancy fell from 69 to 64.5 years, the largest decline in life expectancy ever recorded in peacetime. It was today’s US opiate crisis multiplied by ten or more.
Russia was a county ruled, to borrow Mancur Olson’s terminology, by roving bandits. What Putin accomplished through reining in of the roving bandit oligarchs was to create a system of stationary bandits whose wealth depends on proximity to the state and who, like every stationary bandit, have more of an interest in the strength of the state and the welfare of its population—simply because such welfare is more closely intertwined with theirs.
It is in that sense that Putin’s oligarchs represent an improvement. Since foreign commentators do not have to live in countries on whose democratic records they expatiate, they are often wont to confound the two types of oligarchs. But for people who have to live under the two alternative regimes (roving or stationary bandits) the choice is rather simple.
It is a choice of living in a state of incipient civil war where you do not know what might happen to your children in school, where you could be randomly beaten up in the street, abducted by different private militias, or evicted from your home by one mafia today and another tomorrow. Indeed, the same things can happen under the centralized kleptocratic regime (such as Putin’s), but there these things happen with certain “logic” and “order”. Differently put, punishment is exacted for political disobedience and the rules of conduct are well known. In the system of disorderly roving bandits, punishment can be meted out randomly, or can be done for entirely different actions or reasons—some of which may displease one baron/bandit but not another. Under that chaotic system, violence can come from any direction, for any reason, and at any time.
To the outside observers, the system of random violence—because foreign observers are exempt from it, as indeed foreigners were exempt during Russia’s “decade of humiliation”—might seem more democratic. There are indeed alternative centers of power in competition with each other, there is freedom of speech, each media empire owned by one baron attacks the media empire owned by another baron, and there thus appears to be a political life despite absence of a rule of law, rampant corruption, and physical insecurity. The system of stationary bandits is monochromatic by comparison but for people who live under it more predictable and much safer.
The truth is that large part of the world’s population has only a choice between these two systems: between multi-original kleptocracy and anarchy, and more centrally controlled enrichment. There is no surprise that most ordinary people will select stability over chaos, predictable violence over random violence, and some administration of justice over none. ”
Posted by: rkka | Jun 4 2021 21:33 utc | 71
I have transcribed the first 18 minutes of Protasevich’s ONT interview and translated it to English.
Marat Markov: Hello, Roman!
Roman Protasevich: Good afternoon!
M: As a person from the execution lists, it is quite difficult for me to abstract from your direct participation in the processes that we will talk about today. But I’ll try. And, to be honest, this is not for my own sake, but rather, probably, for the sake of people learning to talk to each other—since you and I could.
My journalist colleagues, I am sure, they would hardly refuse such an opportunity. But today I am the one who has this right. That’s why… I’m going split this conversation. I will ask the questions that the media dependent on the opposition and state media would probably like to ask, that is, in some cases I will differentiate between these questions. I hope at least you understand that there are no independent media?
P: Of course.
M: It is good that you understand, because then many things will not need to be explained. Then let’s start with the basics. Opposition media would ask: “Did you agree to this interview voluntarily?”
P: Absolutely.
M: And how do you feel?
P: I feel great, the only thing is, well, I’ve got a slight cold, but that, again, is not a reason to, you know, postpone the conversation and so on.
M: And what do you think, how will your associates react to our conversation with you?
P: To be honest, it’s hard for me to predict the reaction on their part. I’m just sure that a lot of people will start publicly condemning me. I’m just sure that any support actions that they were planning earlier will naturally come to naught. I would not be surprised if, well, many would call me an alleged “traitor” and so on. But I can honestly say that I absolutely don’t care what they say. I am here and now, and I really… I want to do everything in order to correct my mistakes, in order to…
M: So you don’t care about their reaction?
P: (over) …try to do something…
No. I followed a certain idea of mine and my convictions, and the more I tried not to pry my nose into others’ business, the more I tried not to think about where money was coming from and what kind of money, which, you know, I don’t know, which intelligence services were influencing what was going on, the less I just tried to think about it, the worse it all got.
M: And are they afraid of your appearance, what do you think?
P: I think so. I think that this will cause quite a stir.
M: Well, look, a media like Nasha Niva, it would have echoed, right, the previous question. Was makeup applied to you before this interview?
P: I wasn’t touched at all.
M: Well, I mean, you know…
P: All they did was put on a microphone—that’s all.
M: They like to say that bruises, beatings are being covered by makeup. But… you have answered, okay.
I will not further develop the airplane issue today. I think that, in principle, everything is obvious to both you and me. But a question remains, as I would call it, “from the yellow media”. Who knew that you were flying on this plane?
P: I’ll probably say the preamble first. In principle, the only time I told anything to anyone during this… unfortunate vacation, let’s call it that way, was the moment before the plane took off. And I wrote…
M: Before departure from where?
P: Already from Athens to Vilnius.
M: From Athens.
P: And this is the only time at all during my entire vacation when I wrote about my movements, and the thing is, I wrote it exclusively in the working chat. That is, there were, well, several journalists who are working on the project, plus, well, there were a few people from Svetlana Tikhanovskaya’s HQ—these are Franak Vechorko [Vyachorka in Belarusian spelling] and Daniil Bogdanovich.
M: You smiled somewhat while naming the last surname. Will you give a specific surname? Whom you are suspecting from this chat, who could keep such a serious grudge against you?
P: Well, as you understand, I smiled for a reason, because, again, I also had a personal conflict with the same Daniil Bogdanovich, that is, he held the position of director of the Infopoint network, my relationships weren’t working lately [unclear whether he refers to relationship with Bogdanovich or with other members of the team], and I was both emotionally tired and did not want to do any political work, and in general, in principle, I just wanted to do photography, and plus, in parallel, even, you know, two days before my departure from Athens to Vilnius, that is, they were talking about dismissing me altogether, and even Franak Vechorko wrote a phrase that “upon arrival we will discuss the prospects of our further cooperation”.
M: Whom were they discussing your dismissal with?
P: There was a call, which I did not get on, and I did not get on it for an absolutely stupid reason, the Wi-Fi worked very badly at the hotel, and I simply could not join the call, and there they essentially said, behind my back, that they were going to dismiss me, you know, for the fact that I missed an absolutely petty deadline.
M: Who specifically warned you that this discussion will take place, and it will be about your dismissal?
P: The journalist guys told me about this, and…
M: So you think it was Bogdanovich, after all?
P: I am inclined to assume that yes. Well, I… more than that, I’m just sure of it.
M: You made quite a, well, populist mockery of the appeal of the Belarusian authorities to Poland to extradite you and Putilo. Why did you have such confidence that you won’t be handed over?
P: I never had such confidence. The way I can confirm this… is by the fact that, be that as it may, I never engaged in direct insults of the authorities, you know, I did not try, you know, like some people, you know, to almost send dick pics to the prosecutor’s office, and so on… That is, I always understood that sooner or later I could still be held responsible for my activities.
M: Well, you did quite a lot through The Black Book of Belarus at the very least, and through Belarus Golovnogo Mozga [the name of this Telegram channel is a play on “Belarus” and “encephalitis”, so it could be translated as “Belcephalitis”].
P: Well, these are still somewhat different projects, I had zero direct relation to the activities of The Black Book of Belarus project. Nekhta’s Belarus Golovnogo Mozga – yes, but not The Black Book of Belarus. That is, my only contact with The Black Book of Belarus project was that once I just held a journalist workshop for them, where I simply explained why headings are important, what the structure of the text should be, and so on. Well, to also accuse me of involvement with The Black Book of Belarus is probably… well, in this case, that is, this was, in fact, my only somewhat direct working contact with them.
M: Your companion… Sofiya, right? She was an editor of the extremist Telegram channel The Black Book of Belarus.
P: (nods in agreement)
M: They were publishing personal information of… well, even though she indicated that it was only about siloviki [law enforcement, military, intelligence]—no, of course, it wasn’t just about siloviki, and you know that.
P: (nods in agreement)
M: There was personal information of journalists, my employees, you know, teachers… well, in general, everyone who is connected in one way or another with the state. We found about 80 posts prepared for publication on her phone, right? They have not been published yet. How did the information get to The Black Book? Was it paid for, or were there enough people who happily gave away their colleagues and neighbors?
P: Again, I can only say the part of the things that I know for sure, I had no direct relation to this project.
M: I am not suggesting that you fantasize…
P: Based on what I know, well, a lot of information, it really was passed on, among others, you know, by ex-siloviki, or, you know, that is, in fact, in some workplaces there were some that they fittingly call “rats”, which just easily betrayed their colleagues, former colleagues, and so on.
M: Among those who passed through you, there were our colleagues, state journalists, former ones, those who turned their coats. Did they dabble in this, did they leak information—about us?
P: As far as I remember, there was—and then, only on, it seems, on Motolko’s Telegram channel—information about STV employees, you know, there were some duty schedules, something like that.
M: Well, yes, this information was there.
P: So yeah, but otherwise, well, again…
M: So you haven’t come across something like that?
P: (over) …that is, I, I had nothing to do with the activity concerning the publication of personal information.
M: Roman, and your personal attitude, well, towards those alleged “celebrities” who turned their coats—well, you must have somehow characterized them among yourselves—that fact that they started talking about the same thing en masse, posting the same posts, you know, did that cheer you up, made you laugh? What was the reaction?
P: Personally, it amused me, because, first of all, again, that is, if people have just decided, you know, to show some of their opposition views, then why only now? And, again, that is, if they had such views before, then how did this then, in general, actually intersect with their worldview?
M: As we called it, “changed shoes in the air”.
P: Yes, yes.
M: (over) In the middle of a jump.
P: This is, it seems to me, the most accurate characterization.
I have exactly the same question. How? That is, even if you allegedly, you know, all your life had some, well, opposition views, you know, you did not support the government, how could you calmly walk around and, you know, for example, work at Belteleradiocompany or somewhere else.
M: Well, it’s called…
P: (over) That is, one receives, receives money from the state, but then, at the first opportunity, decides to give up everything.
M: We have this joke when a person then simply writes in his memoirs: “I worked in the system in order to destroy it from within”. Right?
P: Well, that’s funny.
M: Yes, I agree.
P: It’s funny.
M: Roman, a question from the likes of Onliner or Dev.by. Why did you, well, a really progressive person, not stupid at all, a former recipient of a fellowship – you understood perfectly well what could happen, the phone has a lot of interesting things on it – why didn’t you kill your phone while in the air, well, haven’t erased the information? Or why didn’t Sofiya erase it?
P: Actually, the reason… there are two reasons, in principle. One of them is very banal—and that is that at that moment we were both, in principle, in such a state of stress that our brains practically did not work. I mean, that is, we weren’t in a state to think about such things. And the primary task was just to calm down.
M: Was there a panic?
P: Of course.
M: (over) Did you panic?
P: Of course. Later, I just thought about it, and, probably, it is comparable to the feeling when you ascend the scaffold—only, in my case, I was landing on it. Well, because I understood that as soon as the plane landed, I would be held accountable for everything I did and for all the damage that I caused to the country.
M: And why did you say that a death penalty awaits you here?
P: It’s simpler. Because the State Security Committee [KGB] at one time included me in the list of persons involved in terrorism, and terrorism may well be punished with a death penalty.
M: Well, you yourself indicate that you understood that you would be held accountable. And for what exactly do you think you should be held accountable? I am not a judge, and, well, really, you are not under interrogation, and I…
P: Yes, I understand, of course.
M: (over) …should not be emphasizing this, but it’s very important for me to know how well do you understand where you were crossing this line of what was permitted or provided for by the law.
P: Again, well, first of all, it’s important to understand, and, again, I openly admit that I was one of those people who posted calls to go out on the 9th. As soon as they presented me, you know, provided me with documents, presented charges against me, that is, all these things, I immediately admitted my guilt under Part 342 of the Criminal Code, it’s organizing massive unauthorized actions—well, I don’t remember, you know, the details, but something like that. I really immediately and in full admitted my guilt under this part, and after that I just knew that the appeals that were published by me, among others, they were the result of, in fact, uncontrollable riots starting in the streets [he means to say the reverse, that the riots were the result of appeals]. And, in fact, Minsk lived in chaos for three days.
M: Well, the fact is that even in the very memorable interview with Dud’ you clearly indicated that not only you were called for, you, in fact, were coordinating and controlling these processes. Well, that is, at least here, here, those who were in Belarus had an absolutely clear feeling that this extremist Telegram channel, in which you were directly involved, was acting as a protest coordinator. I’m a military person, I understand perfectly well that protests are not organized by appeals alone, and that they need… At least, even by the amount of auxiliary literature, instructions, right, plans, schemes, schemes [explaining] how to organize terrorism on the railway, right, how to make, you know, a device to pierce tires—well, that is, things that an ordinary person, he, without encountering this in life, he will never know this, that is, you need to instruct him—in fact, there was a perfectly clear coordination.
I’ve heard the term Love Hata. What was that, an instrument of creating this protest picture? That is, to create events, on the basis of which the messages were then posted?
P: Let’s just say that, in principle, it was the main chat of the administrators of the largest Telegram channels. It was there that the discussions of the upcoming actions really took place, there was, that is, planning, work on the agenda that should be in place, you know, for this or that week of protests. That is, one can say that this chat, Hata—well, it, you know, was called by different names, that is, it was re-created several times, it had, you know, different names, well, it’s not important, that is, the main thing was that keyword, “hata”—that is, there were, well, administrators of the largest channels, bloggers, and so on, and what was really happening was, well… it was this main coordination chat of street protests and information agenda.
M: Well, who was there, in this secret chat?
P: Hmmm…
M: Well, apart from you?
P: Stepan Putilo, Jan Rudik, well, another representative of the Nekhta Telegram channels also joined, that is Tadeusz Gichan, Franak Vechorko also was there, who often could just come to this… well, for example, come and write in the chat specific talking points on which we had to work, Anton Motolko, Daniil Bogdanovich, whom I already mentioned, earlier there were also such characters as [Artyom] Shraybman, [Eduard] Palchis …
M: Quite well-known people.
P: Yes, Shraybman, Palchis, [Evgeniy] Yushkevich… As far as I remember, there was also Anastasiya Rogatko, who is also related to the activities of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya’s HQ, then Victoriya Palchis, the wife of…
M: Yes, Palchis’s wife.
P: (over) …Eduard Palchis, that is. Well, these are, right away, the people whom I can… Oh, Dmitriy Navosha also was there. In principle, quite well-known media person.
M: (over) Well-known.
P: Yes, Evgeniy Malahovskiy, who worked mainly with courtyard chats and courtyard initiatives. There, basically, we made all the main decisions about where the next action would take place, what kind of information agenda we should push, you know, in the near future, all current events were discussed there, all incidents, everything, so, in fact, one chat, it played the role, you know, of the main coordination chat, in fact, of the entire information war and street protests.
M: So you’re saying that a quite talented journalist, Shraybman, a cunning journalist, I won’t hide it, he was also managing what was, in fact, the riots?
P: I can’t say that he was managing directly, but quite often he would express, you know, his opinion, or was telling us that no, guys, this way it won’t work, change at least, you know, for example, you know, such and such theme, or right here, perhaps draw more attention to this.
M: Well, they were… as far as I understand, a secret chat, it’s usually some kind of nicknames.
P: Well, again, many…
M: (over) How did you know who is who?
P: …many were present under their own names.
M: That is, in any case, you were sure that these people were present in this chat.
P: (over) Yes, yes, yes, yes. That is, some tried to hide, you know, under other nicknames. For example, Bogdanovich, he was always, you know, “John”, or “Kastus”, or “Curator”, or someone else, that is. There was another person there, Miroslav, who had a surname Chigir, if my memory serves me, who worked, you know, in Belarus Golovnogo Mozga, and, well, later he… you know, lately he was doing some kind of investigations, as I understand it, together with The Black Book of Belarus, well, he too, you know, was constantly changing nicknames. To be honest, I, well, can’t even remember which ones now, because he, you know, was changing them literally, you know, every week. [Unclear] was also in Hata, that is, a well-known, in principle, Belarusian freelance journalist.
M: But, despite the fact that you are here, in fact, this chat still exists, as I understand it…
P: (over) Yes, yes.
M: …it’s just named differently now.
P: Well, for sure now it’s just… it was re-created. … Almost certainly there is still the word “hata” in it.
M: Well, I heard it is Safe Hata.
P: Well, that was the last name.
M: The last name.
P: It turned out to be not very safe.
M: Yes, they say, but there is nothing safe, unfortunately, in this age of technology.
Posted by: S | Jun 4 2021 23:03 utc | 81
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