By ANDREW KORYBKO*
Aleksandr Lukashenko's suggestion to learn from the Wagner Group does not mean that the coup was “maskirovka”.
It was previously considered thatExiling Prigozhin and his collaborators to Belarus serves Russian interests", which has been confirmed by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko on Friday. He praised the Wagner Group for “hammering the French in Africa”, not to mention their role in Russia's special operation and especially their victory in the Battle of Artyomovsk, before suggesting that they share their combat experiences with Belarusian forces. This happened on the same day that Belarus approved the creation of a people's militia.
The broader context is the fact that the Belarusian leader has previously warned that the West is planning a new coup d'état against him, as well as the possibility of launching proxy raids like those in Belgorod. Your country needs all the help it can get to defend itself, which is why it is sensible to use the outcome of last week's deal, brokered by Aleksandr Lukashenko, to that end. Russia will have no problem with that either, as President Vladimir Putin described repeatedly Wagner as a group of patriotic heroes, despite the betrayal committed by your boss.
It therefore makes perfect sense for them to defend their federal state ally from the threats posed by their common existential enemies, which can be done by sharing their combat experiences, as suggested by Aleksandr Lukashenko, as well as carrying out war operations. of multidimensional information. Regarding the latter aspect, it was previously reported that Russia blocked the net "Patriot media group” by Evgueni Prigozhin, who, after that, chose to end his activities in the country.
Since he, his accomplices and supporters are now moving to Belarus, these recently unemployed specialists can predictably go with them to resume their information warfare operations there. These could take the form of offensive operations against its host's NATO neighbors, as well as defensive operations designed to galvanize support for the Belarusian government in the face of another imminent coup. Taken together, Wagner could become a national security asset for Belarus, with full Russian approval.
In the event that proxy raids like those in Belgorod are launched from Ukrainian territory, what might Volodymyr Zelensky be willing to do at the behest of his Western patrons, as suggested by the suspicious reinforcement from their country's northern border, so the Wagner could be Belarus's first line of defense. Not only could he directly stop the invaders, but he could also receive orders from Aleksandr Lukashenko to carry out cross-border attacks with the aim of destroying their base camps, including preventively, if such a decision were taken.
“The Wagner Group is unlikely to open a northern front after Evgueni Prigozhin's failed coup, despite the well-meaning wishes of the alternative media community and malicious fake news from its mainstream media rivals to the contrary, even if that too does not can be completely excluded. What can be known for sure, however, is that President Vladimir Putin did not stage a “false flag coup” and conspired with Evgueni Prigozhin to shoot down Russian pilots as part of a “5D chess master plan” to send the Wagner for Belarus.
This conspiracy theory is, regrettably, going viral all over the alternative media in the last week and inducing countless people to fall for the narrative of “sixth column”, with the aim of making them think that the Russian leader committed treason. Those who subsequently build their worldview on this basis will become more and more divorced from reality and therefore even easier to be manipulated by Western secret services, which is why this false narrative must be nipped in the bud as soon as possible.
President Vladimir Putin did not kill Evgueni Prigozhin and his accomplices because he wanted to prevent them from becoming martyrs while at the same time pragmatically preventing the civil war the West has sought to provoke through what could have been its most destabilizing “useful idiot” in history. , if his coup had not been stopped. Neither the FSB nor President Vladimir Putin were lying when they correctly described the Wagner Group chief's betrayal as a "stab/stab in the back", respectively.
The same can, of course, be said for officials and publicly funded international media who have repeated this description of what he has done, but the main influencers in the alternative media who are propagating this conspiracy theory want their audiences to think otherwise. These figures may have previously gained respect for their accurate analysis and/or reporting, but they are betraying the trust their followers have placed in them by lying about this issue to build influence, promote their ideology and/or solicit donations.
Evgueni Prigozhin's failed coup was a landmark for more reasons than one, as it represented the biggest challenge to Russia's constitutional authority since 1993, the most cunning attempt by the West to subvert the country since 1917, according to Vladimir Putin, and a turning point inflection in alternative media. With regard to the latter, this harks back to what was written earlier about his misled supporters who build their worldviews around the claim that he carried out a “false flag coup d'état”.
Just because President Putin avoided the large-scale bloodshed that his country's existential enemies wanted to see, and turned this crisis to the benefit of the Federal State, as already explained, does not mean that everything has been "Maskirovka” [Russian strategy of deception and military disinformation], as the “sixth columns” of the alternative media claim. Those who believe this have fallen for the West's psychological operation of questioning their integrity and that of the FSB, other Russian officials such as head of the national guard, and Russia's publicly funded international media.
It is in the interests of Russia's existential enemies for their supporters to think that these pillars of the state are lying, not to mention the suggestion that President Vladimir Putin ordered Evgeny Prigozhin to shoot down Russian pilots, and then celebrated it all week. conveyed in his speeches. There is no middle ground: either all those mentioned in the previous paragraph are telling the truth or they are lying. Russia's true supporters believe the first hypothesis, while its enemies ridiculously claim the second.
*Andrew Korybko holds a master's degree in International Relations from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. Book author Hybrid Wars: From Color Revolutions to Coups (popular expression).
Translation: Fernando Lima das Neves.
Originally published on newsletter from the author.
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