Pavel Pavlovich Latushka: Deputy Head of the United Transitional Cabinet of Belarus, Representative of the United Transitional Cabinet for Power Transition. Head of the National Anti-Crisis Management, Leader of the "Latushka Team and For Freedom Movement" fraction in the 3rd Convocation Coordination Council
Is it normal to arbitrarily imprison people? To jail his political opponents, each of whom would win against him in a fair competition? Is it normal to keep people in inhumane conditions, to torture, abuse, and rape them, to keep them incommunicado for years, and then just once show that a person is still alive — is this great mercy? Is this the new normal that everyone should get used to and accept?
It's important that today we saw Viktor Dmitrievich Babariko, whom I know personally. And it is important for him to be free. It is our main task to have each political prisoner free.
But do we need to say "thank you" to Lukashenko? Or should we recognize him, recognize his sham elections, pretend everything is fine, that nothing happened, and that thousands of broken lives, thousands of political prisoners since 2020 — well, that happens? And what about the dozens killed or driven to death by his regime? Is that normal?
Look at what a wonderful person Lukashenko is! Liberalization, acts of humanism! He understands everything; he's making steps towards de-escalation, maybe he didn't even want to unleash mass terror and repression, torture, maybe it just turned out this way? Or maybe it's our own fault? Are all his victims to blame? Shouldn't we have just wanted your freedom, democracy, fair elections, a better life? Should we have appreciated Lukashenko instead, not provoked him, not gotten involved in politics, right? Don't make grandpa angry!
This will be a lesson for everyone. Now let's turn the page, kneel down, and glorify the tsar. Or do you think acts of humanism come for free?
Wake up. What is this? A human zoo? I'll show you people in cages, and you clap your hands and be happy?
What other motives does the regime pursue? To hijack the agenda. To divert it from Zelensky's recent statement, where the President of Ukraine directly called him a murderer and a war criminal. Where he showed his rotten core, telling about how Lukashenko twisted and lied, how he asked Zelensky to strike at Mozyr to then justify his participation in the war.
So, do we really have such a short memory? Lukashenko is a murderer, a sadist, and an aggressor. He has killed and continues to kill. He has tortured and continues to torture. He has been jailed, repressed, and continues to do so. He supported the war and continues to do so.
Nothing has changed, he has realized nothing and regrets nothing. He's not looking for any way out of the crisis, he doesn't want to negotiate, he isn't planning to stop the repression, to release all unjustly convicted, to restore liquidated parties and civil society organizations, independent media. He's not planning to let back hundreds of thousands of people he deported, driven out of Belarus. He's not planning to cancel all the repressive laws his puppet parliament passed. And he's not planning to stop supporting the war. All he wants is to sit on his throne until death and for everyone to just accept this, acknowledge his right to do so, to kneel down and not shout "Leave!" but "It's necessary!"
Trying to find hidden meanings and secret signals in Lukashenko's actions is self-deception. There's only one signal and it's clear and distinct — "surrender and accept the new normal". In which things won't get better, but could get worse at any moment.
And what? Will we agree to this? In exchange for a brief news story from a colony? No. I disagree and will not stop fighting until in that story, instead of illegally convicted political prisoners, it will be Lukashenko who is convicted by a fair court for all the real crimes he has committed. This will happen. Maybe not tomorrow. But we will see that story.
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