Shock in Belarus after Lukashenko's scandalous statements about a well-known opponent of his

The President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, announced that the former editor of the opposition publication Nexta, Roman Protasevich, was an employee of the Belarusian intelligence services.

Aleksandr Lukashenko/PHOTO: AFP

According to the Belarusian leader, the arrest of Protasevich in Minsk in 2021 was part of an operation, although, he claims, it would not have been necessary – Protasevich was already cooperating with the authorities. The information was published by the Belarus Today newspaper, writes Focus.ua.

“I will not tell at length. Protasevich is an employee of our intelligence services. Should we arrest him? Here is the question: why did they fly [pe zborul Ryanair] to Vilnius, they did not land there, but turned around and came to Minsk, after a call that there were explosives on board…

Well, land, they were already over Vilnius – land! They turned back, came to Minsk and landed. I said, “Well, run the operation, he was working undercover with these fugitives.” Perform the operation properly», Lukashenko said during a visit to the Vitebsk region, according to the Belarus Today newspaper.

After the plane landed, Protasevich and his girlfriend, Lithuanian student Sofia Sapega, who lived in Belarus, were detained.

“We had to carry out the operation to arrest him. Although we were not supposed to arrest him. He came to Greece, was called there, reported to the intelligence services everything we were interested in, received assignments and flew back, via Vilnius, where he worked. They accused us of arresting an opponent. But he is not our opponent. We did not arrest an opponent. And yet sanctions were imposed.”the head of state added.

Roman Protasevici/PHOTO: Video capture

However, information about Protasevich's alleged collaboration with the Belarusian special services had surfaced long before Lukashenko's statements.

On March 4, 2024, the website Charter97.org published an interview with the coordinator of the “European Belarus” civic campaign, Dmitri Bondarenko. The opposition politician stated that he considers Protasevici an agent, perhaps even an officer of the Belarusian special services.

Protasevich worked as a journalist for the Nexta news website, which covered extensively the mass anti-Lukashenko protests held in Belarus after the summer 2020 presidential election that the opposition and Western governments said was rigged.

Following the campaign of repression surrounding the elections, the main opposition figures either ended up in prison or fled into exile. The circumstances of the arrest of Roman Protasevici, in May 2021, attracted reactions of condemnation at the international level and led the European Union to sanction Aleksandr Lukashenko.

After the arrest, Protasevici was shown on public television tearfully confessing his involvement in the anti-government protests and in a plan to overthrow the Lukashenko regime.

The Belarusian opposition in exile pointed out that the confessions were false and obtained under duress. In 2023, Protasevich was pardoned by the Lukashenko regime.

Lukashenko stated that he made the pardon decision because Protasevic “he did everything he promised”: “Conditions were set for him. This young man did everything he promised. Not to avoid prison. He admitted he was wrong. He wasn't at the front, he didn't kill anyone.”

After the pardon, he got a job as a welder in a factory in Belarus.