Natallia Radzina: Chaos And Panic Reign In Moscow On The Eve Of The Parade

The Putin intimidation campaign succeeded.

The editor-in-chief of Charter97.org Natallia Radzina gave a great interview to YouTube channel of the famous journalist Evgeny Kiselyov.

The conversation took place on May 7. Yevgeny Kiselyov reminded that on this day, exactly 25 years ago, the first inauguration of Vladimir Putin took place in Russia.

"In a sense, it was a landmark date for Lukashenko as well. Because then, as evil tongues claim, his dream of becoming president of Russia or the "united state of Russia and Belarus" was finally shattered. After all, there was such a project and there were people in the Kremlin, who were working on it - to unite Belarus and the Russian Federation, making Lukashenko the next president after Yeltsin", - said Yevgeny Kiselev.

Natallia Radzina explained that May 7 has a completely different meaning in the history of Belarus:

- Today is the anniversary of the disappearance of one of the leaders of the Belarusian opposition, former Interior Minister of Belarus Yuri Zakharenko, whom Lukashenko killed just on May 7, 1999. And Lukashenko was already a dictator by the time Putin came to power in 2000.

I recall that in 1996 Lukashenko held an illegal referendum, as a result of which he became a usurper, essentially destroyed the principle of separation of powers, and dispersed the legally elected 13th Supreme Soviet. And it didn't happen under Putin, it happened under democrat Yeltsin.

It was then that Lukashenko had a tough confrontation with the parliament, the Supreme Soviet. At that time Belarus had a unicameral parliament. Lukashenko was threatened with a real impeachment. Belarusians could say goodbye to the dictator even then. The country would have been free for almost 30 years. However, it did not happen, because Lukashenko was saved by the Russian leadership.

At the crisis moment, when the Supreme Soviet strongly opposed Lukashenko's "referendum" on the usurpation of power and supported the Constitutional Court, which declared that Lukashenko's actions were unconstitutional, Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, Chairman of the State Duma Gennady Seleznev, and Head of the Federation Council Egor Stroyev flew to Minsk on the night of November 21-22. They then held a secret meeting with the chairman of the Supreme Soviet Semen Sharetsky and the head of the Constitutional Court of Belarus Valery Tikhina. It is not known what these conversations were about, but they were persuaded to sign some kind of agreement with Lukashenko.

The document was called "On the socio-political situation and constitutional reform," which bought Lukashenko some time. The parliament did not declare him impeachment, he held a "referendum", dispersed the rebellious Supreme Soviet, and created an absolutely pocket "national assembly" (it is already a bicameral parliament of "reliable" people who are appointed by the dictator himself and vote exclusively for any of his initiatives). That's when the absolutely real dictatorship in Belarus began.

The editor-in-chief of Charter97.org believes that Russia's democratic leaders were already dreaming of restoring the USSR and turned a blind eye to the dictatorship in our country:

- Let me remind you that in 1995 the Treaty on the Customs Union was signed with Belarus. In 1996, on April 2, the Treaty on the creation of the "community" of Belarus and Russia was signed. And in 1997, also on April 2, the Treaty on the creation of the "union" of Belarus and Russia was signed. The "union state" itself was formed on December 8, 1999.

The processes of recreating the Soviet Union and restoring the empire were underway. And the Russians decided to start with Belarus. There was constant talk about "Slavic brotherhood", about the need for Ukraine to join this "union".

Therefore, Russia turned a blind eye to the situation with human rights in Belarus, to the usurpation of power by the dictator, to the murders of Lukashenko's opponents.

We remembered Yuri Zakharenko today. And then, in 1999, on the eve of signing the Treaty on the creation of the "union state," the leader of the opposition Gennady Karpenko was killed. Later, in September, former deputy prime minister and vice-chairman of the Supreme Soviet Viktor Gonchar was kidnapped and killed.

A terrible thing was happening in the country, and democratic Russia continued to build some kind of "union" with this state. And I wouldn't want to reproach you personally here, Evgeny, because the independent media in Russia were working quite well at that time. I can say that they covered the situation in Belarus quite objectively.

Natallia Radzina believes that the war unleashed by Putin and Lukashenko against Ukraine brings closer the fall of the two regimes and the liberation of Belarus:

- Putin will not agree to any truce. We see that he is only dragging out the time by continuing to involve Lukashenko in this war. Today, after these 30 years, the Belarusian dictator no longer has any independence. Putin has finally pulled him under himself. But this, in fact, will ruin them both, because I am convinced that Ukraine is able to win this war, no matter how difficult the situation is today. This victory will radically change the state of affairs in the whole region, directly in Belarus.

What else is the reason for my optimism? A lot of materials have recently appeared (including this written by the British The Economist) about the development of Ukraine's military-industrial complex. That today the Ukrainian military-industrial complex is making great strides and producing very strong weapons, in particular long-range and short-range drones, even long-range missiles.

This gives me hope and confidence to the Ukrainians themselves that they have a chance to win this war, even if there are no or limited American arms supplies. Because with the support of Europe, which is ready to assist Ukraine, with financial injections from the European Union, the same Ukrainian military-industrial complex, the Ukrainian army, being on the defense, can hold out for a very, very long time, inflicting serious damage on Russia.

Belarusian journalist believes that the weak point of Putin's regime is the economy:

- We see that oil prices have begun to fall, we see that against this background OPEC+ countries continue to increase oil production. This has a direct impact on the Russian economy. It also affects the economy of Belarus, even more, because today it is totally dependent on Russia.

More than 95% of Belarusian exports, while the regime is under Western sanctions, go either to Russia or through Russia. What does the Belarusian economy rely on? The main export item is petroleum products and potash fertilizers. Petroleum products are produced from Russian oil.

So, if the price of oil falls, it means that the prices for petroleum products produced in Belarus also fall. Moreover, in the situation of a clear crisis, which will be in Russia now, the demand not only for oil products, but also for other Belarusian goods is decreasing. So the situation is quite difficult, and all the more we see that the European Union does not intend to somehow soften sanctions against both Russia and Belarus. Now the 17th package of sanctions is being discussed. This all gives hope, so I would not fall into pessimism here. Let's see what happens next.

Natallia Radzina commented on the mass attacks by Ukrainian drones on military facilities in Russia that we have been seeing for the last few days:

- Panic has arisen in Russia due to the fact that Ukraine has refused to go for a three-day truce, convenient for Putin.

- The widespread shutdown of the Internet, the problems that have arisen in connection with this in stores with card payments, with ATMs, well, and, accordingly, the closure of airports throughout Russia. This all caused, of course, chaos. I don't feel sorry for the Russians here, especially not for the leaders of the countries who decided to go to the parade to see a war criminal.

In fact, they are all accomplices of Putin's war crimes if they go to his propaganda event. I believe the Putin intimidation action was successful. And it is very good that Ukrainian experts and officials started talking about possible strikes on Moscow.

Evgeny Kiselyov expressed the opinion that Ukraine cannot strike at the parade on Red Square, because Putin will be visited by the leaders of the countries that formally support Ukraine - the head of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev (after the end of the interview, on May 7, it became known that Aliyev canceled his visit - ed.), the president of Kazakhstan Kasym Zhomart-Tokayev, the prime minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan. Natallia Radzina says these politicians are "sitting on two chairs":

- On the one hand - they support Ukraine. Someone in words, someone with humanitarian aid, maybe some components for armaments, someone with weapons. But they are actively cooperating with Putin, helping him and Lukashenko to circumvent Western sanctions. We know all these schemes very well. Now they are going to parade a war criminal. And something reminds me of that.

We started the conversation with the formation of Lukashenko's dictatorship. Yeltsin had the same unprincipled behavior towards Belarus. Georgia behaved the same way. Democrat Mikhail Saakashvili, having come to power as a result of the "Rose Revolution", began to actively cooperate with dictator Lukashenko. I can say the same about democrats Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, who came to power in Ukraine as a result of the Orange Revolution, and I can say the same about Peter Poroshenko, who came after Euromaidan. Who was the first person he invited to his inauguration? Lukashenko. I was just shocked, I did not expect it. I know Petro Alekseevich, we met in Vilnius on the eve of his inauguration. Then he did not say a good word about the dictator, I will not repeat the epithets he used to award him. And after the Euromaidan, where Belarusian Mikhail Zhiznevsky died, in which many representatives of the Belarusian opposition participated, the dictator was invited to Kiev for the inauguration of the president.

And Vladimir Zelensky continued active cooperation with Lukashenko. Even after the 2020 protests, Ukraine did not impose economic sanctions against the regime; on the contrary, 2020-2021 was a record year in trade turnover between the two countries. Ukraine actively purchased Belarusian oil products made from Russian oil. Only in 2022, when missiles were flying from the territory of Belarus and Russian soldiers were marching, did Ukraine realize who Lukashenko was.

So the unscrupulousness of these politicians, who are not always dictators (Tokayev is an autocrat, Aliyev is still a dictator, I have many friends from Azerbaijan who also went through prisons), can end badly for them.

Should we call things by their names? It is time to think about what is happening in the post-Soviet space. Why do the democracies that have emerged sit on two chairs? This leads to catastrophic consequences. We, democrats in the post-Soviet space, need real solidarity.

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