Miguel Ángel Gayo Macías |
Krakow (Poland) (EFE). – The prominent Belarusian leader in exile Pavel Latushko says in an interview with EFE that Moscow will never forgive the Minsk regime for interceding in the crisis caused by Wagner’s mercenaries and links the immediate future of his country to the war in Ukraine.
Latushko, who coordinates the opposition from Warsaw, affirms that Russian President Vladimir Putin “will never forgive (Belarusian President) Aleksándr Lukashenko” for the “humiliation” of interceding in the crisis caused by the Wagner Group insurrection.
He is vice president of the Unified Transitional Cabinet of Belarus, which represents and coordinates the democratic opposition in that country from exile, and believes that the mercenary mutiny “provoked (…) the largest mobilization since August 2020 or February 2022 between the Belarusian diaspora”, a group that waits expectantly for “the decisive moment” that will bring about the end of Lukashenko.
“What could be the decisive moment for the Belarusians to act? It could be the one in which Ukraine enters the Crimea, the destabilization of Moscow, a change of authority in Russia…”, explains Latushko. “There is a big underground movement in my country, there are Belarusian guerrillas fighting with the Ukrainian Army who are ready to come back and liberate Belarus,” he adds.
About the Wagners
The possibility that Yevgueni Prigozhin and thousands of his mercenaries are stationed in Belarusian territory was, at first, “a tactical victory” for Lukashenko, but it could turn into “a strategic defeat” in the future, according to Latushko, who says he is aware of it. that “among the Belarusian generals it is rumored that (hosting the Wagners) was a bad decision”, since, he wonders, “what would prevent Prigozhin from marching on Minsk the same way he marched on Moscow?”
“Lukashenko and Putin are dictators. And a dictator never forgives another a humiliation. Putin will never forgive Lukashenko for the fact that he took advantage of a moment of weakness. And it turns out that now Lukashenko is very popular in Russia, ”stresses Latushko.
He says that the difficult circumstances that the Lukashenko regime is going through after 29 years in power keep Belarus at a continuous crossroads in which many of the decisions are forced by Russian demands, internal discontent, confrontation with the West and the need for Europe’s longest-serving dictator to survive at all costs.
A clear example of this difficult balance was Putin’s decision to transfer nuclear weapons to Belarusian territory, which could, Latushko ventures, be “a tool to stay in power, to blackmail international sanctions” and on the other hand entails the risk of unleashing a spiral of unforeseeable consequences.
“What would happen if a Russian tactical nuclear weapon was used (against Ukraine) from Belarus? There would be a meeting in Brussels and it would have to be decided: against whom do we direct the retaliatory attack? Some will say against Russia, because they are Russian weapons, others will say against Belarus for harboring such weapons. That is what Putin and Lukashenko are counting on,” says Latushko.
Belarus future
For this reason, he thinks, “a large part of the future of Belarus depends on what happens in Ukraine (…) and its victory over Russia would mean the impossibility for the Kremlin to implement its policy of influence and pressure on the countries it wants to conquer, as it has been the case in Belarus for decades.”
In the wake of any conflict there are always civilian victims, and that is one of the great concerns of Latushko and his team, which has just presented documentation in the Court of The Hague on “the illegal delivery of Ukrainian orphans to Belarus for re -education and ideological indoctrination. These are children from 15 Ukrainian cities, we have documented 16 cases, but we have a record of 2,100 ”, he assures.
Latushko, whose relatives he says have been victims of Lukashenko’s repression, stresses that “we also know of thousands of cases of murder, rape of men and women, 103,000 forced deportations… Lukashenko is complicit in crimes against humanity and must be tried for it ”.
He adds that the West is not tough enough against a dictator who “prepared the war against Ukraine, since the war started from the territory of Belarus, planned the hijacking of the Ryanair civil plane (to kidnap political refugees), organized the migration war against the European Union, now has nuclear weapons, is bringing Wagner to Belarus… What else should Lukashenko do to get tougher sanctions?”