The Cyber-Partisans have had the regime on toast for months, and this is one of many embarrassing info dumps. Not clear how much play this stuff has, you're taking your life in your hands trying to access the leaked material from within the country. The most interesting bit is that they have dumped all the sneaky regime grasses (those reporting neighbours for flags, anti-regime manifestations, opposition sympathies, verbal abuse of Lukashenko & govt officials, etc) in the public domain.
The UK, US & Canada introduced significant new sanctions yesterday including the prohibition of Belarusian potash- a really painful blow to the regime. Lukashenko delivered a rambling and aimless eight hour harangue at a "press conference" in which he dismissed Timanovskaya as a poor athlete with longstanding opposition sympathies, told Britain and America to go to hell with their sanctions, and presented himself as a fearless warrior focused on COVID rather than the 2020 election (an outright and provable lie- unless the army and OMON all had COVID- he spent most of the election with them), and someone battling to save his Brezhnevite nirvana from a foreign-sponsored coup.
His lack of engagement with reality really was striking. He also said he would be leaving the presidency "soon" (aye, right) and that there were fifteen to twenty candidates "in full public view" waiting to replace him. This also seems fanciful given his long record of jailing political opponents, and playing endless games of divide and rule amongst the regime's praetorian guard of functionaries and military top brass. The regime won't last long enough for his preferred successor- youngest son Kolya- to be old enough to take over.
The regime is totally screwed for cash. It's not clear that Russia will underwrite fresh losses. Maybe China will increase potash purchases, maybe not. There have been two stories of top private businessmen being shaken down for cash in recent weeks- basically arrested, treated badly, and ordered to hand over millions of dollars in return for liberty.
There is anxiety at a joint Russian-Belarusian military exercises scheduled later this month- fears that it may lead to a permanent Russian military presence in Belarus. Lukashenko also stated in his Berchtesgadian monologue that he would not hesitate to call in the Russian army if it looked like his political opponents were getting the upper hand. We're still at the nonsense stage in his mind of "two independent states in a Union state" political future.
There is a lot of fear presently within the country. Whilst the one year anniversary of the stolen election- 9 August- was marked globally, the marking of it within Belarus was fitful and hit-and-run. Anything else at present is suicidal. Anecdotally there are reports of regime security apparatus combing the footage from last summer and the testimony of grasses, and mopping up / jailing anyone who was involved, and still at large. If you were involved last summer, even just walking in a crowd for an hour, you can be lifted / jailed at any time. The oppressive atmosphere can only be imagined / shivered at, from a distance.
An example can be found in the football star Ilya Shkurin. Ilya, top scorer in the Belarusian league two years ago, is headstrong and a difficult character. He is however vehemently against the regime and has refused to appear for the national team (he'd be an automatic pick) whilst Lukashenko is president. Ilya moved to CSKA Moscow for the beginning of the 2020 season and used his heightened profile and fame to speak out against the government.
It now transpires that an enraged Lukashenko burst a haemorrhoid over this criticism and recently wanted Shkurin deported back to Belarus so that "he could be dealt with" (i.e. jailed, or sent to a remote army base in Gomel region in the nuclear-contaminated part of the country. professional footballers are exempt from military service, but this can be revoked if you incur the regime's displeasure). This led to a very sticky situation, which CSKA- historically the Red Army team and very well connected- were only just able to stave off, by loaning the player to Dynamo Kiev, where he is a (bit) safer.
Beyond the nomenklatura in politics and the army, the regime can count of the support of an amoral group of young IT and media specialists, who are willing to ensure their own short term comfort no matter what consequences that entails for everyone else. He can rely on the apathy of another employed minority. But he knows himself that the rest of the country want him gone, even if his apparatus has frightened them into silence. The question then is- how long can someone hold onto power by brute force before something cracks? Lukashenko may be indifferent to questions of his legitimacy, but the people are not. Lashing out at relatively obscure people such as Timanovskaya and Shkurin- who people won't know if they don't bother with sport- is another little sign of deep paranoia and insecurity at the highest level.
