DISINFO: Western intelligence services created technology to provoke protests in Belarus
SUMMARY
The Western intelligence services created technology to provoke protests in Belarus after testing it in Iran.
RESPONSE
Recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative portraying protests in Belarus as a destabilisation effort orchestrated from abroad. In reality the protests were organised and carried out by local actors, opposition politicians, and Belarusian citizens, without any foreign involvement.
The reason for the protests was to contest the results of the presidential election in Belarus on the 9th of August, which were not monitored by independent experts, and are largely considered fraudulent by both international observers and a large part of the Belarusian society.
On 19 August 2020, the European Council called the Belarus elections neither free nor fair and on 2 October 2020, the Council imposed restrictive measures against 40 individuals identified as responsible for repression and intimidation against peaceful demonstrators, opposition members, and journalists, as well as for misconduct of the electoral process. The Council added 15 members of the Belarusian authorities, including Alexandr Lukashenko, as well as his son and National Security Adviser Viktor Lukashenko, to the list of sanctions, on 6 November 2020.
See similar cases claiming that The West carries out a colour revolution in Belarus and tears away Minsk from Moscow that the protests in Belarus are a colour revolution conducted according to a Maidan scenario and that the West wants to prepare Maidan in Belarus.