DISINFO: Ukrainian authorities will participate in attacking Belarusian independence

This publication promotes recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about Belarus protests as being organised and controlled from Western countries and Ukraine, claiming that the West attempts to harm Belarus and organise a colour revolution. There is no evidence that the Western governments or Ukraine are involved in any way in the protests in Belarus. Large-scale protests began in Minsk on August 9 against the results of the presidential election, and then in other cities. People revolted against election fraud and police violence towards thousands of rally participants. According to statistical data and independent observers, the official result of the presidential election was itself heavily doctored. A joint monitoring effort by three NGOs demonstrates the scale of falsification based on election protocols from 1,310 polling stations across Belarus and concludes that the announced result (80% of votes cast for Lukashenka) is mathematically "impossible" (p. 7). An analysis by the Novaya Gazeta newspaper shows that excluding "anomalous" voting districts from the official tally would see Lukashenka's percentage drop to 43%, and Tsikhanouskaya's surge to 45%, in which case a second round would have to be called. “We are extremely alarmed at the hundreds of allegations of torture and other ill-treatment in police custody”, UN human rights experts said, citing reports of 450 documented cases. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Euronews that if he were in the Belarusian leader's place he would "definitely" hold the vote in one month and invite foreign groups to observe it. In his interview to RT on 9 September 2020, Alyaksandr Lukashenka groundlessly claimed that Americans wrote the Belarus-related statements for Zelenskyy, Macron, and Merkel. The European Council condemned, on 19 August 2020, the violence against peaceful protesters and announced that it would soon adopt a list of sanctions for those responsible for violence in Belarus. "As the elections in Belarus were neither free nor fair, and did not meet international standards, the EU does not recognize the results presented by the Belarus authorities," is mentioned in a European Council press release. See earlier disinformation cases claiming that the West supports a bloody post-election Maidan scenario in Belarus, that the West's only interest in Belarus is to make it anti-Russian, and that Belarus moves towards complete colonization by the West.