The broadcast ends with a threat.

The Belarusian state television channel ONT broadcast a little more than an hour and a half of a conversation with the captured regime opponent Roman Protassevich on Thursday.

But in reality the conversation lasted more than four hours, says the head of the station, Marat Markow, at the end: "And unfortunately we cannot name all the names that have come up while the investigation is still ongoing."

Reinhard Veser

Editor in politics.

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    This statement is intended to frighten people who have had contact with Protassevich in Belarus in the past few months - and that is likely to be very many.

    Until he was arrested on Whitsunday from a plane that the Belarusian authorities forced to land in Minsk on a flight from Athens to Vilnius, Protassevich worked in exile in Poland for the main opposition channels in the Telegram messenger service.

    In particular, the Nexta channel, through which the street protests against ruler Alexandr Lukashenko were coordinated last year, worked with information that had been sent to him from Belarus - from demonstrators, opposition activists, but also from sympathizers in state institutions.

    Seemingly complete confession

    Protassevich, who is in custody in Minsk, was presented as a broken person in the conversation by station boss Markov. Protassevich said in it that he made a full admission of his guilt for organizing “mass riots” and that he was working “fully and openly” with the investigators, to whom he shared a “multitude of unique facts”.

    At the beginning of the conversation, Protassewitsch replied to a corresponding question from Markov, that the conversation came about voluntarily. Belarusian opposition activists in exile, however, said they were convinced that Protassevich had been tortured. Spots can be seen on his swollen face, and at one point towards the end of the “interview” there are wounds on Protassevich's wrists.

    The end of the recording, in which he only speaks hesitantly and sobbing, gives an idea of ​​the methods by which Protassevich was induced to have this conversation. The "interviewer" Markov tells Protassevich that his girlfriend Sofia Sapega, who was also arrested, was suffering from panic attacks in custody, and then asks what he thinks, from which panic attacks people suffered who now have problems with the law due to his incitatory activities.

    Markov then mentions that Protassevich accompanied the right-wing extremist volunteer battalion "Azov" as a journalist at the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

    Was he afraid of being extradited to the pro-Russian separatists, who had therefore initiated “criminal proceedings”?

    Protassevich replies in the affirmative - he can only hope that Lukashenko has the "political will" to prevent extradition.

    Protassevich's statements are intended to discredit opponents of the regime

    What Protassewitsch says is intended to support the regime's claim that the protests are being controlled and financed by Western secret services.

    The leaders of the opposition in exile lived in luxury;

    they are only looking for material advantages and are preoccupied with intrigues among one another.

    But they would only continue to get money from their clients if they provided reasons for sanctions that lead to hunger in Belarus.

    Protassevich also cites intrigues among opponents of the regime as the reason for his arrest.

    Only close employees of the opposition leader Svetlana Tichanovskaya, who lives in Lithuania, would have known that he was on this flight.

    This insinuates that the Belarusian secret service diverted the flight to Minsk thanks to their information.

    The interesting thing is that the regime may give up the legend that the landing was necessary because of a bomb threat. There is no need to talk about the plane, says “Interviewer” Markow at the beginning of the conversation, “everything is clear to both of us”. Protassevich says of the ruler Lukashenko that he respects him “without reservation”. He recognized that the criticism of him was only a form of pressure, which the latter withstood with “steely eggs”.