Ukrainian special services organized a provocation in Belarus, as a result of which 33 Russian citizens were detained in order to discredit relations between Moscow and Minsk, as well as for the sake of extraditing participants of hostilities in Donbass to Ukraine. The site kp.ru writes about this on August 7.
According to the newspaper, in the course of operational measures it was possible to establish that the Ukrainian special services created a fake Internet project, in which about 200 Russians were involved, and then brought to the Belarusian side the information that was truncated and beneficial to Kiev that their goal was to destabilize the situation in the republic. …
It turned out that in May, some people began recruiting volunteers in Russia, including former members of the Wagner PMC, allegedly to be transferred to Libya to guard facilities. It is noteworthy that many of those whom they tried to recruit are former citizens of Ukraine who were on the territory of the Russian Federation and who had previously fought in the Donbass.
In total, about 180 people were recruited. In early June, they were informed of the death of one of the curators, who was replaced by a man who introduced himself as Arthur. He contacted the wards using a virtual number copying the number of the Russian consulate in Venezuela. The man said that the goals have changed and volunteers will be sent to Venezuela instead of Libya, allegedly to work “on the projects of Rosneft.”
As a result, five groups were formed. One of them was to be transferred to Venezuela by sea, and the other four were to go to Minsk and from there fly first to Istanbul, and then to Havana and Caracas.
The first group, which was supposed to fly from Minsk on July 25, mainly included people who had previously fought in the Donbass. All tickets were allegedly issued through Russian travel agencies, but when checked, it turned out that they were bought from Ukrainian agencies.
On July 20, at the request of a Kiev company, tickets for the group were canceled and rebooked for July 30, and its leader was not informed about this. He was also not informed that on July 24 most tickets for the 30th were also remotely canceled.
Before the flight on July 25, the group leader received instructions from the curator Artur to destroy the already invalid tickets and not fly to Istanbul. This was due to the lack of a connecting flight in Havana, but, according to kp.ru, in fact, the tickets could become evidence of the involvement of the Ukrainian special services in the operation.
On July 29, the entire group was detained. The list of the detainees was promptly transferred to the Ukrainian Embassy in Minsk, because of this, the names of the detainees quickly appeared in the database of the Ukrainian website “Peacemaker”. In addition, the Belarusian media reported that 33 Russians did not show up for the flight on July 25, which is a lie, since their tickets were canceled.
On July 29, near Minsk, they detained 33 Russians who are allegedly employees of the Wagner PMC. State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus Andrei Ravkov stated that some of the detainees had “Ukrainian citizenship”. In Minsk, the incident was allegedly associated with the arrival of more than 200 people in Belarus “to destabilize the situation during the election campaign.”
The Russian Federation noted that the Russians were going to fly to Istanbul, but were late for the plane. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko rejected this version.
A criminal case has been initiated against the detainees on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack. They chose a preventive measure in the form of detention.
On August 5, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed the possibility of extradition of the detainees with Lukashenko by phone. The Belarusian leader, for his part, offered to decide their fate to the prosecutors general of the three states, who, in his opinion, should fly to Minsk for this.