DISINFO: NEXTA covering the Belarus protests is a project of the Polish special services
SUMMARY
NEXTA is the most popular and currently promoted Telegram channel. The Polish project seems to be controlled by Polish special services. The telegram channel is used to coordinate the actions of the protesters. They indiscriminately put what can be perceived as the truth, and when they realise that it is a lie, they remove it.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about colour revolutions and protests in Belarus after presidential elections in 2020. NEXTA started as a regular Youtube channel, a musical project of Stepan Putilo, now known as Stepan NEXTA and Stepan Svetlov. He is from Belarus and studied in Poland, and several years before the presidential elections this channel was "about Belarusian realities, information about the life of officials and what they are trying to hide". The main editor of the channel is Roman Protasevych who like Stepan Putilo is living in Poland as well, where he asked for political asylum. The channel mainly uses user-generated content - materials that users from all over Belarus send anonymously. "Telegram is an anonymous platform, a secure transfer of information. NEXTA is thousands of Belarusians who share some information, send it to us and thus tell it to the whole country. They tell stories that should be heard that will never be heard on Belarusian television or in the official Belarusian media," - editor-in-chief Roman Protasevich said about the concept of the project in an interview with Euronews. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the Polish secret service is in any way involved in running the channel. See previous disinformation cases alleging that the EU continues to support a colour revolution in Belarus; the EU provoked a civil war in Ukraine, now it destabilises Belarus; Belarusian opposition wants to turn Belarus into the 51st state of the US.