Lengthy earlier than Russia invaded Ukraine, Russia developed a plan in 2020 to enter and occupy Belarus as a result of it confronted mass protests towards President Alexander Lukashenko, based on the Ukrainian protection ministry.
The ministry’s fundamental intelligence directorate in Kyiv mentioned on Tuesday that Moscow had outlined the justification to invade their neighbor “after the falsification” of the Belarusian presidential election wherein Lukashenko claimed victory with simply over 80 % of the vote.
Ukraine launched what it mentioned had been Russian navy paperwork displaying a plot for Moscow to “suppress standard protests” sparked by the now exiled opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who mentioned she received a first-round victory with 60 % of the vote.
The paperwork launched by Kyiv on Tuesday mentioned an data marketing campaign had been underway in Belarus to construct the case for regime change, a improvement that Russia feared might draw it right into a full-scale warfare with NATO.
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The authenticity of the paperwork has not been verified, and Newsweek has contacted the Kremlin and Russia’s protection ministry for remark.
The paperwork (comprising 13 pages) are headed by the phrase “secret” within the prime proper hand nook with a title describing it as a plan to regroup “formations and navy models of the first tank military within the space of the mission.”
Russian troops can be deployed underneath the duvet of a joint train with Belarusian armed forces mentioned the doc, which was signed by Main Basic Andrei Kolesnikov, whom Ukraine says was killed in Mariupol on March 11.
Brian Whitmore, a non-resident senior fellow on the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Heart, mentioned such a plan was “believable,” given the strained ties between Moscow and Minsk in 2020.
Going through a reduce in Russian subsidies, Lukashenko was resisting stress from Moscow to host a Russian navy base in Belarus and to pursue nearer navy and financial integration.
Earlier in 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Belarus to “normalize” strained ties. Lukashenko’s pivot to the west to protect sovereignty involved Russia’s navy intelligence, the GRU, and its Overseas Intelligence Service, the SVR.
However Lukashenko has since been remoted by the west after a brutal crackdown after the disputed election, making him extra depending on Vladimir Putin.
Belarus has not contributed troops to the warfare in Ukraine but however it’s a staging space for Russian forces, and Lukashenko has allowed Putin’s forces to launch airstrikes from his territory.
