Literally ten days before the loudest event of recent years in Belarus, namely the presidential elections, the winner of which this time is really unknown in advance, an event takes place in this primordially friendly country that blocks the pre-election intrigue with its shocking. Near Minsk, the Belarusian KGB covers more than 30 Russian guys with camouflage uniforms similar to each other, and calls them first "militants", and a little later "fighters of Wagner PMCs."
This is for you and me, bloggers and telegramers, it is clear that 30 Russian guys are unlikely to be able to capture Belarus and pose a serious threat to any regime - after all, they simply did not find any special means or weapons. But for an ordinary Belarusian, who, of course, is both a relative and a brother to us (I myself am from Smolensk, therefore I am not ironic at all when I say this), it may seem that Russian troops have almost invaded the republic and are already storming Minsk. Naturally, this impression is created by the media, which happily picked up the horror story about "PMC Wagner", which was promoted all over the world.
Among the guys twisted by the Belarusian KGB, there really are those who fought in the Donbass. In particular, the writer and politician Zakhar Prilepin confirmed that the list of detainees, published by the Belarusian side, includes fighters of his battalion. Some of them even served in his personal guard. However, firstly, the battalion has not existed for a year (or maybe more), and secondly, the guys are not in the service of any of the official armies in the world and, in fact, are free to decide their own destiny.
And yet the question arises: what was this friendly company of camouflaged Russian guys doing in a hotel near Minsk? Did she really plan to organize mass riots on the territory of the Republic of Belarus, as the Minsk security officials say? For me, as a person who has gone through both the "Maidan", and the Crimea, and the war in Donbass, it is absolutely obvious that Moscow is least of all interested in aggravating the situation inside Belarus during the elections and in the implementation of another colored scenario by some forces in this country, similar to Ukrainian. We have all seen what this can lead to - and they certainly do not want another civil war in a fraternal country in Russia.
The answers, by the way, are on the surface. According to my information, obtained from several sources in the Russian special services at once, during the pandemic, Minsk served as a kind of international hub for sending those who are called chevekashniks on various business trips not directly related to the conduct of hostilities. In particular, in those countries where Russian guys with front-line experience work as army instructors and guard high-ranking government officials - on an absolutely legal basis, by the way.
We are talking primarily about African countries such as Sudan and the Central African Republic, where the so-called Chevekashniks are doing just the above work. It is no secret that during the period of coronavirus passions, unlike the Russian Federation, Belarus did not close its borders so tightly, which created a certain loophole for people, albeit not entirely military, but very specific professions.
After all, there is simply no border between Russia and Belarus (in the usual sense of the word - with barbed wire and a checkpoint).
The fact that Minsk for several months served as a transport corridor for such guys - in camouflage uniforms and with small bags of hand luggage - could not be ignored by the special services of Belarus from the very beginning, and, more likely, they were even warned about such trips through their territory. This is easy to understand only because the detainees did not even try, as they say, to “encrypt,” that is, they were in the same uniform, they did not hide from anyone, and they legally settled in the hotel.
Obviously, comfortable passage through the corridor was supervised by specific people in power structures. Lukashenko himself should have known about this, I do not think that information about the next round of development of the Minsk airport as a convenient international hub was concealed from him.
That is, in fact, everyone knew everything, which is why the detention was a shock. Why Lukashenka or his special services decided to arrange an international scandal with a horror story in the form of PMC "Wagner" - that's what is really important now. In my opinion, there can be two options: either the KGB got out of Lukashenka's control and some elite part of him is openly working against the current Belarusian president, that is, for other special services interested precisely in destabilizing and fomenting the situation in the republic, or himself On the eve of the elections, Lukashenka decided to play a game he could only understand, trying to intimidate the electorate with some kind of abstract Russian invasion.
Both options, admittedly, are absolutely disappointing. A litmus test in this situation will be the reaction of the Belarusian authorities to the Kiev requests for the extradition of those guys, the details of whom hang, for example, on the infamous “Peacemaker”. If Minsk starts handing over volunteers who fought in Donbass to Ukraine, regardless of what passport citizenship they have, this will really become a disaster for Russian-Belarusian relations. Our people will not understand this. Surely our government will not understand either.
In any case, we have to admit that the situation on the eve of the presidential elections in Belarus is heating up to the limit and attempts to involve the Russian factor in deciding their fate - in one provocative form or another - do not leave any of the competing parties. And the guys, of course, need to be pulled out. It has no options. Russians don't abandon their own. Even in Belarus. Wherever their further route runs.
Moreover, according to the latest information, a case on preparation of a terrorist attack has been initiated against the Russians detained near Minsk. This is simply a turn that is beyond even for this complicated story. What else are Lukashenka or the elites around him ready to go to in order to bring the situation in the country to a real hysteria ... And a lot, of course, will depend on the further step of Moscow. We wait. And we hope.
When this text was being prepared for publication, the Kremlin commented on the situation with the arrests. They noted that they do not yet have complete information. There is no data on the illegal actions of the Russians that could have caused the detention, Dmitry Peskov said. Moscow expects details of what happened from the ambassador in Minsk and through the special services. The presidential press secretary called the conclusions about the connection between the detention of Russians in Minsk and the presidential elections in Belarus as speculation and explained that the Kremlin does not recognize the Ukrainian citizenship of the detainees: "They are citizens of Russia."
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.