"Obviously, yesterday was a bloody war," a security official from the Belarusian city of Brest said in a telephone conversation shortly after the disputed presidential election sparked unprecedented mass protests and clashes whose brutality, despite decades of harsh rule, was also unprecedented. in Belarus.
"Brest is finished. Five hundred detainees... They skinned them all there like cats."
Weeks after the Aug. 9 election, Belarus teetered on the brink of revolution as a massive, democratic opposition movement that emerged to challenge autocratic leader Alexander Lukashenko refused to accept official election results that millions believe were stolen.
Based on the leaked conversations of security officials and politicians, as well as interviews with former security officials, people from Lukashenka's inner circle, the Belarusian service of Radio Free Europe (RSE) made a series "Lukashenka's lackeys" about the events of the summer of 2020.
The podcast series shows that although the security forces initially underestimated the nature of the mass opposition, they were eventually able to deal with the threat, bringing brute force to bear against an opponent who lacked the experience and tools to confront a man who was prepared to hold on to power at any cost. the price.
"We were afraid of blood," said Nobel Prize for Literature winner Svetlana Aleksievich, who was a member of the Opposition Coordination Council during the protests. "They were not afraid of blood."
Andrej Astapovich, a former officer of the State Investigative Committee who resigned during the 2020 event, spoke to RFE/RL about how he was affected by the photos he saw at the time.
"I've been an investigator all my life and I've seen injured people," Astapovic said. "But when I saw these photos, we didn't look at the bruises…. They were beaten on the head with batons. I have experience. I've been to autopsies. I can tell when a person has suffered serious physical injuries. I know how easy it is to break a skull."
"It felt like we had already won"
In the weeks leading up to the vote, it was already apparent that this election would be unlike any other rigged election in Belarus' post-Soviet history. As independent candidates began collecting signatures to qualify for the elections, it became clear that a wave of discontent was sweeping the country.
Anatol Kotau, who served as an adviser in Lukashenko's administration at the time, says he felt the difference.
"Some people within the system felt that something had gone wrong in the spring," says Kotau. "It all started with COVID. The disease entered every home through television screens, and Lukashenko was saying that it was not serious, that it was fake news and that anyone who died was their own fault. COVID was a test that the system had failed. "
The authorities' response was to tighten control over the process.
Prominent blogger Serhij Tihanovski announced on May 7 that he would run for president and was arrested before the end of the month.
His campaign was taken over by his wife Svjetlana Tihanovskaya, then a 34-year-old teacher and translator with no political experience who would become the global face of democracy in Belarus in a few weeks.
"It was incredible to see all those hundreds of thousands of eyes at the rallies," Tikhanovskaya recalled in a telephone conversation from her forced exile in Lithuania. "It was terrifying. I had never been on stage before... There was some euphoria, until August 9th... Then it seemed to us that we had already won."
Another leading independent potential candidate, banker Viktor Babariko, was arrested on June 19.
Another potential independent candidate, Valer Capkala, who was seen as a significant opponent of Lukashenko, fled the country on July 24 after being told that his arrest was imminent and that the government planned to take away his children.
It was around this time that Lukashenko's government made the fateful decision to allow Tikhanovskaya to register as a candidate in the elections.
A former Kotau administration insider says the decision was made "as a joke."
"Babariko and Capkala were not registered, so they had to find someone to beat to get a very easy win," Kotau said. "Lukashenko believed it would be an easy victory, a very easy victory."
However, the opposition retaliated with an unexpected move that proved equally fateful, all the main opposition campaigns united behind the candidacy of Tikhanovskaya.
"If the three campaigns hadn't united, if they hadn't united and eventually become a symbol of protest and a magnet for the protest vote, nothing would have happened," Kotau said. "She had no political experience."
"High Level Meeting"
At the same time, Lukashenko strengthened his real support base, the police and security apparatus.
Aliaksandr Azarau is the director of BYPOL, a public organization of former police officers who quit during the protests. He says Lukashenko spent much of the campaign period visiting riot police and special operations forces units in places such as Brest, Vitsebsk and Marjina Horka.
"He promised them support, apartments, raises," Azarau said. "They saw him live as a strong leader, which is what people like."
Just before the election, a meeting was held that left the options for the security forces wide open. This is stated in the leaked telephone conversations, which are thousands of hours of Interior Ministry conversations that were hacked and published by the Cyber-Partisans group and which independent experts for RFE/RL have assessed as authentic.
"A high-level meeting was held," Minsk deputy police chief Ihar Padvojski said during a conversation with another senior security official. "I suppose one of the directives issued will give us confidence in the tactics of action, so we won't be physically afraid of the job."
"Something started"
Election Day on August 9, 2020, began fairly routinely, although there were large crowds, a sign of intense interest in the election and its outcome, unusual after years of apathy toward tightly controlled ballots whose results were predetermined. The 50 percent turnout threshold was crossed before noon.
"I have never seen anything like this," a voter from Minsk told RSE at the time. "I hope people came out like this not only here but across the country. People who have never voted before. What was the point of voting before? But now I see there is hope."
But the fraud machine was already at work. Uladzislau Batsjan, a cadet who served as a polling station guard, told RFE/RL that he saw officials stuffing ballot boxes at polling station number 60.
"I consulted with some guys from my academy, and they said that they had also seen such cases," Batsjan recalled. "They wanted to report them, but they called them and said it was none of their business."
Military vehicles and emergency police vehicles appeared on the streets of Minsk and other cities. Security forces blocked people from reaching the center of the capital. Nevertheless, by the evening, hundreds of thousands of people had gathered around polling stations in Minsk, demanding that the results be announced.
"The protests started when the results of polling stations with falsified data started to be published," Azarau said.
"We started calling colleagues from other departments and they all told me that everything is being falsified everywhere. Election commission officials openly admitted it. No one counted at all - they just wrote down the numbers that the head of the commission told them."
At 20:83 p.m., the head of the Central Election Commission, Lidija Yermoshina, declared Lukashenka the provisional winner with XNUMX percent of the vote, a result that seemed like a big lie to the hundreds of thousands of people who turned out for the Tikhanovskaya election rallies.
The police immediately started attacking the crowd. Internet and mobile connections are down.
"Military equipment was moved," Aleksievich said, recalling how he watched the events from the window. "A lot of it... It wasn't water cannons. It was military equipment, armored personnel carriers with machine guns... There was a sense that something had started."
Police, military personnel, special forces troops and prison guards were mobilized, deploying flash bombs, water cannons, rubber bullets and more. Thousands of people were detained, often brutally.
"The police and army guys who were deployed behaved very well," Lukashenko said the next day. "True patriots."
That morning, the Central Election Commission announced the complete preliminary election results: 80,23 percent for Lukashenka and just under ten percent for Tihanovskaya.
Tihanovskaya, however, declared herself the winner and called on the government to ensure a "peaceful transfer of power".
"We couldn't help everyone"
In the first few days after the election, Lukashenko was quiet.
"I don't think he felt anything the first day," Kotau said.
"When people gathered in the column [in Minsk's Independence Square] on the first day, they were broken up and there was a feeling that everything would go on as usual. The demonstrations were a little bigger than usual, but that didn't matter... On Monday everyone is going back to work."
"And they went back to work," he added. "But after work they went out again to protest. People were outraged and felt cheated."
A key moment occurred on August 10, when police shot and killed 34-year-old protester Aleksandr Tarajkouski. Police claimed he was killed by an improvised explosive device he was carrying as he approached police lines. But a video soon surfaced on social media showing him being shot at point-blank range by police as he stood with his hands above his head.
"Two things impressed me," Aleksievich recalls. "The sincerity of the violence and the way the leaders of the security forces talked about the murdered Tarajkouski. He was walking and looking at them brazenly. And that's why he had to be shot, because he was walking towards 'our guys' and looking them in the eyes, not believing that shoot."
Former investigator Astapovic recalled that the officers seemed to enjoy the violence.
"They would watch the videos and laugh about who got hit with the baton," he said. "They made up funny names, like the 'wailing wall,' a place in the basement where beaten prisoners would wash, which was always covered in blood. They wore berets and walked with their chests out and so on."
The week after the election was a dangerous time for supporters of Lukashenko's government, as violence continued and public anger grew.
"Many people thought that Lukashenko could not last," Astapovic said. "In the organized crime department, Vyacheslav Orlousky, the propagandist who called the protesters 'rats' who needed to be cornered and exterminated... had already packed his suitcase and was ready to flee to Russia. Many thought Lukashenko could not hold on and it was time to run. They were sitting on their suitcases. If the protests had lasted a little longer, everything would have been different."
Former police officer Azarau said the police are also showing signs of straining.
"There were not so many that it was possible to rotate them and let them rest," he said. "They work until morning, then sleep until noon and go back to work after lunch."
"It was also mentally exhausting," Azarau added. "They were afraid to walk in public in uniform. They would wear uniforms to work and change. People considered them criminals. Their friends and relatives did not want to communicate with them."
Reports of abuse and torture of detainees began to emerge, particularly at the notorious Akrescina pre-trial detention center in Minsk.
"I want to ask for forgiveness from everyone who was there," a doctor who treated the victims from Akreština said in tears.
"We couldn't help everyone... There were bruises and swollen eyes that couldn't even be opened. There was a man whose vertebra was just crushed. There were people with huge bruises on their backs. Abdominal injuries that hid the mess inside."
It remains unclear who ultimately ordered the brutal crackdown.
"There are different versions," Azarau said. "Some say that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin gave the order to act like that. It's not clear. I think Lukashenko realized that he lost the support of the population. Before it was unclear, maybe 50-50. The older generation, my own mother, voted is for him. For this election, we know for sure that [Russian military intelligence] prepared a report that showed only 17 percent support for Lukashenko. So it was necessary to use violence to drive the population into a corner, so even if they don't support scare and will not resist."
"Soldiers were given contracts that said they would not be prosecuted for shooting people," he added. "The order has been given to use weapons."
On August 11, Tikhanovskaya was forced to leave the country.
"The government decided to use the old methods when certain people were driven out of the country and everything quieted down," she said in a recent phone interview. "They did not understand that this time it was not about one candidate, one leader, but about all Belarusians. My departure did not change anything: people did not leave because someone told them, but because they wanted to."
"They're gone... there's no tent"
The most violent phase of the crisis lasted three days. After that, both sides adopted different tactics. On August 12, several hundred women appeared in a market in Minsk dressed in white, demanding an accurate vote count. People in passing cars honked their horns in support.
Similar demonstrations took place in other cities. The police retreated.
"Almost at the same time, peaceful protests by women began in various cities," one participant told RSE. "Everyone came out in white, with placards, with kindness, with peace. The security forces work according to their methodology and can react to any force except love. The force of love paralyzes them."
On the same day, several hundred medical workers demonstrated in Minsk, calling for an end to the violence.
"This is not a protest," one doctor said at the time. "It's a demonstration for peace so the doctors can help the wounded."
The march of workers from the tractor factory also took place without police intervention.
And the authorities changed their tactics after August 12, apparently realizing that violence only provokes additional resistance.
"After the 12th, when they stopped beating and breaking everything, when they stopped using force, they switched to another tactic," Minsk police colonel Alexander Sazonau said in a conversation that was among the leaked Interior Ministry recordings.
On August 16, Lukashenko held a pro-government rally that he largely directed at Independence Square in Minsk. Supporters were bussed in from all over the country, and the Belarusian leader gave a defiant speech.
"It was an attempt to organize its own anti-Maidan," a former presidential administration official told Kotau, referring to the Ukrainian government's efforts to counter the 2013-14 Maidan uprising. "They wanted to show that they had their supporters. They counted on 100.000 people, but despite their logistical efforts, there were far fewer."
The demonstration lasted an hour.
On the same day, however, the largest demonstration in the history of Belarus took place, with as many as 200.000 people waving white-red-white flags and taking to the streets of Minsk. Smaller demonstrations were held in cities across the country.
"The material published by Cyber-Partisans, the flood of conversations, shows that [the authorities] decided to let the situation go for a few days or a week, in order to vent the anger of the people," Kotau said. But the passivity of the security forces meant that a record number of people turned out for the first march."
The mass protest passed peacefully, without police intervention.
Former policeman Aleh Alkajeu said the government simply did not have the necessary forces to violently intervene in such protests. But that didn't mean they were inactive.
"There were many informers in the crowd," he told Alkajeu.
Astapovic, a former official of the Investigative Committee, added that the government's change in tactics was partly caused by police exhaustion.
"By [August 12], I noticed that when the police ran out of the bus, they immediately put their shields on the ground," he said. "After all, it was their third day in a row. For so many days in a row, they couldn't physically withstand such loads. And in the meantime, more and more people were coming out."
The only choice, he added, was to "let them walk and people will tire themselves," Astapovic added. "And that's what happened. They left. There was no one left. There was no tent."
Meanwhile, police operatives were filming the most active protesters and monitoring social media so that the leaders of the protests could be caught later.
"Facing a Brutal Dictator"
On August 17, Lukashenko arrived by helicopter to an organized rally in front of workers at the Minsk Wheeled Tractor Factory (MZKT) and defiantly vowed not to hold new elections "until you kill me."
But he was mocked and mocked by factory workers who booed him and chanted, "Go away!"
"Those who voted against him knew that they were the majority and that they acted legally," Kotau said. "But they were deceived, very cruelly deceived. Lukashenko suffered a great blow in the MZKT. He never... encountered an audience that not only did not listen to him, but also booed him."
Although workers at Belarusian state television, the government's main propaganda weapon, began resigning, there were no major departures from the security forces during this crucial period.
"First of all, they didn't see a real leader [in the opposition]," explained the former police officer to Alkaje.
"Secondly, everyone thought of themselves. They were afraid of possible lustration. The police talk a lot about that. Will I be able to work or not? Did someone take pictures of me? Someone new comes to power, the policeman can lose his job. There are many advantages when you're a cop, apartments, good mortgages and more. He can lose everything."
In addition, he told Alkajeu, police officers are habitually "turned towards their superiors".
"With age, one gets used to obedience," he said.
Meanwhile, the opposition movement was fully committed to nonviolence, Aleksievich says.
"Everyone was in the mood for peace," he told RSE. "Nobody wanted to 'hijack the telegraphs,' as Lukashenko likes to say about coups. Nobody was preparing Molotov cocktails.... We were aware that if we had come out with a Molotov cocktail, it would have been worse than China at the time of Tiananmen Square. We were dealing with a brutal dictator. Nobody had any illusions."
"We were all afraid of blood," she added. "They weren't afraid of blood. But we were, and we felt responsible. What was necessary was to do what the Ukrainians did during their Maidan. They stayed out for a few months. I don't know why we didn't do it."
Astapovich said Belarus' marginal economy also played a role in the collapse of the protest movement.
"The most important thing for our people is not to lose their lives, but to lose their jobs," he said. "There's no reserve. If you lose your job, what are you going to eat next month? Everyone understands that... People save for three months to buy new boots. That's how I lived as an investigator."
Three years later, the democratic opposition in Belarus has been dispersed, imprisoned or marginalized. Lukashenko's security forces continue to operate, now focusing heavily on so-called railway partisans and others who oppose Russia's invasion of neighboring Ukraine and the complicity of the Belarusian state.
"To this day, they continue to imprison people. They clear cities every day [and make arrests]," Tihanovskaya said in an interview with Current Time. "But then it looked like everything was going to come crashing down."
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