By Peter Koenig for The Saker Blog
Case in point is Belarus. On 23 May 2021 President Lukashenko ordered the Ryanair plane, flying from Athens to Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, carrying his Nazi-schooled threatening opponent and activist Protasevich and his girlfriend, to be diverted to Minsk. He did so after having received a message of a bomb threat on board the plane from the Swiss e-mail provider Proton Mail. Proton later said the message was sent after the plane was already diverted. Whom to believe? – If Proton Mail is right, why then send a message in the first place? – Neutral Switzerland is again caught red-handed – and red-faced.
The opposition activist Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, were immediately arrested upon landing in Minsk and are now jailed, awaiting judgement and / or extradition to Ukraine, where Protasevich is accused of having participated fighting in Kiev’s neo-Nazi battalion against Donbass.
As reported by RT, authorities of the self-proclaimed Lugansk Republic (LNR) have accused Roman Protasevich, of being part of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion. The LNR is an unrecognized state located in Ukraine, and has existed since the 2014 western prompted “civil war” in Donbass, when separatists unilaterally declared independence from Kiev. The Azov Battalion is an ultra-right-wing military unit now incorporated into the National Guard of Kiev-Ukraine.
RT states that Azov fought during the height of the Donbass war, first seeing action at the Battle of Mariupol. The group is heavily linked to neo-Nazi ideology, with the regiment’s logo featuring the Wolfsangel, a symbol of many divisions of the Nazi German Army during World War II. Joining the Azov Battalion is illegal in Donbass, as well as in Belarus.
An LNR Prosecutor says, there is evidence that Protasevich has fought in the Donbass war on the side of Kiev. See this https://www.rt.com/russia/527197-west-sanctions-protasevich-ryanair/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Email and this https://www.rt.com/russia/526866-protasevich-nazi-battalion-evidence/ .
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Given the tense circumstances, call them western aggressions, after President Lukashenko’s landslide reelection, there may be good justification for Lukashenko to arrest his archenemy, Protasevich, who’s unpredictability – and especially, his most likely following orders from the west, predominantly the US and its EU “compradores” – might be a threat to Lukashenko’s life.
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The arrest of Protasevich is the official reason for predominantly the US, followed by the vassalic Europeans, to initiate a series of “sanctions” against the Lukashenko Government and Belarus. Sanctions include travel bans for prominent people, the freezing of Belarusian state assets and Belarusian private assets in the US and EU and in the west in general. For those who don’t know, this is only possible because the western dollar-based economy, is totally controlled by US / Wall Street banks. Any western currency monetary transaction flows automatically through a US bank – mostly through the SWIFT system – thus, can be interrupted and confiscated at any time by Washington orders.
The point is, the west – again especially the US – wants to get rid of Lukashenko, a close Kreml ally. They want to replace Lukashenko by a friend of the west, so as to be free to advance with NATO into Belarus, as step closer to Moscow’s doorstep.
That’s the key reason. The west couldn’t care less about human rights, the reason they bring forward for the sanctions. The west has never cared – and under the current constellation will never care – for human rights. In fact, the west is the world’s biggest and most brutal offender of both civil and human rights. And this doesn’t even take into account the western instigated worldwide covid drama – decimating world population, as well as the world economy.
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Just imagine the reverse, a ferocious eastern enemy of the Biden Administration, on a plane approaching the US, but destined to a neighboring country, say Nicaragua or Mexico, or, god-forbid, Cuba – with threats to harm President Biden or people of his entourage. The US would just let it go? I don’t think so. If Washington had a chance to bringing the threatening eastern enemy onto US soil and arrest him, they would do so.
Would the east, and I mean the entire eastern alliance of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) – about the equivalent of the western alliance – start sanctioning the US, foremost the US President and his close support group; the European Union, putting up travel bans for political leaders and high officials of the US / EU Administrations – plus a myriad of economic sanctions, i.e. interrupting the eastern supply chain for western consumer goods, but foremost, for eastern (mostly Chinese) produced pharmaceuticals on which the west heavily depends?
Have eastern countries ever sanctioned the west? Never, as far as my history books say, and they were all edited and printed in the west. It’s not part of the eastern cultural and ethical standards punishing other countries – even their western self-proclaimed enemies – to punish them for their autonomous and sovereign independent behavior. China, Russia, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea – to name just a few – might not like it, but “sanctioning” an autonomous sovereign nation, like, by cutting off their energy supply, is not in the cards for the east.
Is it surprising that the east is increasingly going its own way – a way offering incorporation for those who want a peaceful social and economic development, but no longer a way of dependence and obedience to Washington and western puppets. Sorry to call the European “puppets” of the Washington empire. They may be the “parents” – the parent empire – of today’s US-empire, but that they follow in their offspring’s criminal footstep is not a feast of honor, or of inspiring respect.
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Back to Belarus. Lukashenko has done what he had to do to protect the integrity of his country and government – and viewing ahead with a looking glass – to protect their ally Russia from another NATO step closer to Moscow. And so did President Putin, when he had his arch-enemy and traitor, Alexei Navalny, arrested; Navalny, who claimed the nonsensical, having been poisoned by Russia – when the very Russian authorities let him go to the west, Berlin as it were, to be treated against his “poison”. A huge western anti-Russia propaganda ensued.
Did Russia sanction Germany, the EU or the US for these abject lies?
There seems to be no limit – on any subject, on any issue – to western lies and manipulation of the truth. At least until now. This may change as more people are waking up, seeing ever clearer through the thinning sham of vail.
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked for over 30 years on water and environment around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020)
Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Thank you, Peter. You write: “On 23 May 2021 President Lukashenko ordered the Ryanair plane, flying from Athens to Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, carrying his Nazi-schooled threatening opponent and activist Protasevich and his girlfriend, to be diverted to Minsk. He did so after having received a message of a bomb threat on board the plane from the Swiss e-mail provider Proton Mail.”
I have read elsewhere that it was the Ryanair crew that decided to divert to Minsk, having been warned by Minsk ATC of the bomb threat. Is that incorrect?
Exactly. Moonofalabama site has a far different recounting of the events leading to the diversion, but in no sense can it be said that the aircraft was diverted upon the orders of Pres. Lukashenko.
Second as mentioned in moonofalabama there is the distinct possibility that there were 2 emails and not one and that the earlier email was also received by Belarus. Protonmail has not responded to that question and it appears that they are actively concealing information that might be damaging to the western narrative.
Dear Peter, thank you always love your comments…What do you think of this hypothesis… The reason the West is supressing the killing and maming of the covid jabs are as follows. Soon they will allow Sputnik and Sinovax and then they release the horrible death tolls. See the Russkies and Chicoms did this to you, now go to war and get your jab… These evil people know no bonderies or limits…
Martin
The Ryanair pilot consulted with his control room. He was advised to land in Minsk. Nothing to do with Lukashenko.
Strangely enough, Western media has not interviewed the pilot. I guess that proves that the above is the correct version.
The traitor Protasevich was probably betrayed by his sponsors. He was of no further use to them. At least now they can claim that he is a “victim” of repression – like that idiot Navalny who voluntarily exchanged his luxurious abode in Germany for a Russian prison cell. :)
It is most likely that Navalny’s ‘luxurious’ hosts sent him back.
Please name a nation that the Financial Empire has sanctioned and later not captured it through a war or regime change. Sanctions are a prelude to a nation that you’re next in the line to be captured.
Name a nation in the Non-$ Bloc (China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Belarus…) that hasn’t been subjected to sanctions. Is the Dollar Empire pursuing the “Death by a thousand cuts” approach against the Non-$ Bloc? Lingchi (in Chinese), translated as the slow process or slow slicing.
Nations (Belarus, China, Iran, Venezuela… ) with 100% state ownership of their Central Bank are under attack by the Global Financial Syndicate’s Financial Empire. Also, these nations are in the Non-$ Bloc. The National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB) is 100% state owned and not private. It is “accountable to the President of the Republic of Belarus.” The Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) is 100% state owned and same with the Central Bank of Iran (CBI). People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is owned by State Council of the People’s Republic of China.
Monetary Imperialism is following a ploy that it successfully implemented in Myanmar through Aung San Suu Kyi. The Central Bank of Myanmar was state owned and became an autonomous and independent regulatory body by the Central Bank of Myanmar Law which was enacted by the Myanmar Parliament in 2013. The Financial Empire has chosen Svetlana Tikhanovskaya for Belarus and Juan Guaidó for Venezuela, to implement what Aung San Suu Kyi did in Myanmar?
There exist a “Belarus Liberation Plan” that has been presented to the Financial Empire’s representatives in March, 2021 and discussed at Brookings Institutions. It called for its implementation from May to October of this year. When looking at the big picture, the Financial Empire is driving a regime change in Belarus. Won’t sanctions push Belarus towards Russia? Isn’t Belarus one of Russia’s red lines?
Is the Financial Empire doubling down against the Non-$ Bloc?
I agree with Max. The U$A used to act as the big stupid muscle for the Anglo Zionazi banking cartel, but because the muscle has grown flabby and punch drunk the cartel is emerging from its shadows with blackmail.
Reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon from the sixties. Two Wall Street types are leaving an airport. One says to the other:
“It’s a sobering thought how little we really own, when we look down and see how much there is still left to own”.
Time to get rid of the Anglo Zio Capitalist monopoly of central banks. Most so-called “national” banks are privately owned by a small, tight conspiratorial group of whose greed is insatiable.
Max: ““Death by a thousand cuts” was indeed a punishment practiced in Imperial China, But much maligned and mis-understood: It was applied to those who had maligned the Son of Heaven (The Emperor). The object was not to impose maximum pain, but to make it impossible for the offender to be buried in one piece, So he would be drugged to the point of becoming unconcious and then “operated” upon,
The French punishment for “lèse majesté” was much more barbaric; The victim was torn apart slowly by four horses.
Good article Peter. I’m just uncomfortable with the article starting off with a number of incorrect assertions. I’m not trying to nitpick. There is a huge difference between “Lukashenko ordered” and “the pilot decided after consultation with RyanAir (as is totally normal in situations like this that happen fairly regularly)”. There is a big difference between “arrested immediately” and “arrested some hours later after he was identified going through immigration before re-boarding” (because it shows that his arrest was not pre-planned by Belarus).
the western dollar-based economy, is totally controlled by US / Wall Street banks
There’s the issue in a nutshell. They have the power, and they don’t hesitate to use it unilaterally, for their own fell purposes.
The US often forces commercial planes to land in order to arrest individuals and no outrage follows.
Belarusian Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya speaking to the media today declared “Belarusian Revolution,” and announced they’re building underground groups for regime change. She asked for more sanctions to free political prisoners and get a new election. Her group is working towards a nationwide strike.
It will be interesting to see how Belarus and Russia respond. Another regime change on Russia’s borders.
https://www.livetube.tv/zh-hans/news/video-live-belarusian-opposition-politician-speaks-after-eu-announces-more-sanctions?amp
Lukashenko had nothing to do with this dupe being arrested. Furthermore, the plane, on course to Vilnius, did not start descending even though they were already close to Vilnius, as if there was never any intention to actually go to Vilnius, in other words, the whole thing was staged to sacrifice this guy.
Belarus released the correspondence between the planes crew and Belarusian air traffic control, they offered them to land in Minsk after the email. And they could have landed in any number of other cities and countries for that matter, yet they chose the one country, which was not the closest or most convenient, by the way, where one of the passengers was considered a criminal. FYI, Svetlana Tihanovskaja (my own spelling, no idea how to properly spell Cyrillic names in Latin letters), the current “president in exile” of Belarus, according to the west, basically the Belarusian Guaido. She flew over Belarus not long before that and nothing happened. Are you telling me a 26 year old blogger is a bigger threat to Belarus than the self proclaimed president in exile, who is calling for sanctions on her own country? And yes, there is an arrest warrant waiting for her in Belarus.
Second, Navalny, same thing, Putin has nothing to do with this racist clown. He broke the law… again, and got arrested… again. Also, I highly doubt some doofus with support from 2% (neutral polls) or 3% (his own polls) of the country is any sort of threat to Putin, let alone his arch enemy.
These guys are pawns, sacrificed by the west to generate more pretext for sanctions and further demonization of both presidents. Protastevich was not a willing goat on the altar, which is why he sang like an entire flock of birds behind bars, they probably gave him a laptop with internet access to check the news himself. There were tweets by western crusaders about his arrest while the guy was still inside the plane. Navalny is a willing dupe, he went back to Russia knowing full well he will be arrested upon arrival.
What is so ironic in this story and many others emanating from “Russia’s near abroad” is that Merkel’s Germany, Macron’s France and most other “holier than thou” Western European countries have strict laws that are readily used to prosecute and incarcerate any Neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, or alleged “Anti-Semites.” Yet, because vile armed, modern-day Hitlerites and followers of the mass murderer Bandera are a plague to Russia, they are not just tolerated but actually lionized in the West. Navalny, though not a Banderite, is also a self-confessed bigot, quite vociferously against Islamic citizens of the Russian Federation.
Men who would be considered heinous criminals in Merkel’s kingdom of hypocrisy are feted and privileged by her Christian Democrats, largely in an effort to suck-up to Washington, I would surmise. Favor from Washington has always seemed more important to her than the condition of her own working class citizens who must endure endless crime and rape by the thugs she has enthusiastically admitted from the battlefield hells created in the Middle East by Washington. Those transplanted miscreants are never going back home to their own violent authoritarian societies any more than the genie ever willingly goes back into the bottle. Ukraine will stay a society in comprehensive ongoing deconstruction and moral degradation as long as it remains a shamelessly abused colony of the United States. Belarus is wise to avoid the same fate. Putin is to be commended for keeping Belarus from becoming another Ukraine, but he’d better remain vigilant. Washington is more interested in collecting scalps from half way round the world than in promoting the welfare of its own citizens where “divide and conquer” is what the oligarchy does best.
A small quibble about “the west” and “the east”:
The World is round, There are always places further east or farther west than the places being called “west” or east” as long as you don’t specify that You aare siscoursing about the eastern or western parts of som specifically delimited area,
Of course “north” and “south” are finite places, since thy have a limit , anding up either at the North Pole or the South Pole.
So please find some other wording. You may capitalize (The West and The East), but even better, talk about the north atlandisist states (including Israël, Greece anf Italy ant their Central Eurpean appandicities like Romania, Poland and the three Baltic gnomes), and otherwise East Europe (Russia and The Ukraine), then West Asia (not “the middle east) and so forth.
Remember, US Christian Zionists already believe the earth is a flat plane with actual corners. This expression appears in their Scofield Reference Bible (Isaiah 11:12): “And gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” They also believe the Earth was created exactly 6025 years ago because someone counted up the “begats” in the very same Bible. So, it isn’t much of a stretch for them to think that the Ashkenazim are the rightful heirs to all of Greater Israel, from the Nile to the Euphrates.
Manifest Destiny is the racist notion that Europeans were chosen by God to displace the indigenous in North America and steal their land, just like what the Ashkenazim are now doing in Palestine. Manifest Destiny equals Zionism equals racism, pure and simple.
“He did so after having received a message of a bomb threat on board the plane from the Swiss e-mail provider Proton Mail. ”
Proton mail is a service. It does not create email’s by itself. There’s always a sender and a receiver. Who was the sender?
”The point is, the west – again especially the US – wants to get rid of Lukashenko, a close Kreml ally. They want to replace Lukashenko by a friend of the west, so as to be free to advance with NATO into Belarus, as step closer to Moscow’s doorstep.”
It’s plain to see that the West isn’t only non-agreement-capable; it’s non-learning-capable as well. On this basis, Lukashenko and Putin have very little to fear, since the Master’s brainrot is always passed on to the lackeys and stooges available abroad. Tikhanovskaya, Navalny, Protasevich — little more than a load of utter reactionary garbage. Verdict: Being a Western bought and paid for ”dissident” today is utterly irreconcilable with even a modicum of human intelligence which all the atrocious, unconvincing propaganda trying to promote these lowlives irrefutably prove.
“Nazi,” “Neo-Nazi.” Only (((1))) group benefits from the continued use of these ancient slurs, regardless of context. It is not helpful.
“The West’s Audacity of Sanctioning”
Spectators are prone to pose misguided questions and/or to rely on assertions/connotations thereby limiting their agency to spectating/speculation.
Inherent in the quote above is that resort to sanctioning is audacious thereby obfuscating possible questions of why the opponents are limiting their agency to resort to sanctions and concomitant charades.
In 1969 some practitioners posed the question “How to drown a drowning man with the minimum of blowback ?” predicated in part on the understanding derived from rigorous wide-ranging analysis that a drowning man was drowning.
Some others did not accept that a drowning man could be drowning, and tried to memory hole this analysis, whilst some others were completely unaware of this analysis and sought to rely on their beliefs of “precedents” including but not limited to imagined hegemony, good guys in white hatness, or imagined/perceived self-interest.
Those believers were the ones upon whom the drowning men were piggy-backed/supported in various ways; for example Japan changing its economic focus from research, design and manufacturing, to financialisation, Saudia Arabia facilitating the petro-dollar, The Soviet Union agreeing detente on the evangelised bases of spheres of influence, and the People’s Republic of China developing its economy on the basis of demand facilitated by the financialisation of others through acceptance of/belief in, fiats of various hues.
In the short term many believers instead of the drowning men started to drown, but in the longer term some believers drowned whilst other believers became so fatigued they could no longer support the drowning men, who in turn once more became drowning men.
However some continued to ponder and implement strategies in facilitation of “How to drown a drowning with the minimum of blowback ?”
So given the thumbnail contexts outlined above – Is the West’s sanctioning audacious or indications of other phenomena in the lateral process of how to drown a drowning man with the minimum of blowback?
Why did Russia and China go along with the Covid-hoax? Black and white are no longer choices anywhere in this f#cked up world.
It seems the Germans are leading the push for EU sanctions on Belarus. Instead of that their leaders should be on their knees begging the Belarussian peoples forgiveness for the war crimes they committed in Belarus during the war.From 1/2 to 2/3 of the Belarussian people died in the war. The highest percentage of any country during the war.And the entire country was devastated and destroyed. I would advise the Belarus government to play these too movies every week on TV there.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJYOg4ORc1w&ab_channel=%D0%9A%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%8F%D0%91%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D1%8C%D1%84%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BC and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw3mDJ0qdp0&t=168s&ab_channel=%D0%9A%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B0%D0%9F%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB
Let today’s generation of Belarussians learn about what the grandfathers of today’s Germans did to their country.That way they will understand what the Germans shouting about human rights really means.
Great analysis as always!
I see the quisling “government” of Serbia has joined in the shameful sanctions against our brotherly Belarus, despite support during the criminal NATO Bombing of 1999 and recent arms deliveries.
Together with reports from the British Ministry that an agreement was signed against maligned Russian influence (whatever that means) and joining the US and Bulgaria for air exercises off the Black Coast, where a Mig-29 crashed.
Not to mention propaganda attempts in the local media demonizing Belarus and even blaming Putin for sabotage at the Sloboda Arms plant in Cacak city (where have we seen this before)…?
All I see is the West pushing Belarus more towards Russia and eventual unification as otherwise Lukashenko’s days will be numbered as the economic situation worsens and attempts at insurrection increase.