Looks Like Belarus Are Becoming The New Soviet Union.......

[ToraToraTora]

https://news.sky.com/story/belarusian-sprinter-arrives-at-polish-embassy-in-tokyo-after-refusing-to-board-flight-home-12370591

[ichkeria]

Belarus has always been the Soviet Union ...

[ToraToraTora]

Yes they were part of it but they split up into their previous identities after the fall of the Berlin Wall. They then embraced, in varying degrees western values and freedoms, Belarus has now gone back to the bad old days.

[ichkeria]

Belarus has never embraced anything remotely associated with freedom.

That was my point: Lukashenko is a brutal dictator and always has been
And he’s clamped down even more since the protests last year.
It’s true that he has appeared to respond positively to approaches from the EU in an attempt to keep Putin at arms length, because Russia would quite like to effectively annex his little fiefdom.
But when it comes to shoring up his power base then Putin fundamentally supplies his encouragement and life blood.

[ichkeria]

I think it’s fair to say that of the former Soviet republics, only the Baltic states and arguably the RSFSR, which was ironically the first to break away, embraced democracy. The last only for a limited while. Of the rest, Ukraine and Georgia have eventually followed suit, Moldova has struggled, not helped by being, like Georgia, partially occupied by Russian-encouraged “frozen conflict” zones. While for example Turkmenistan is more repressive now probably than in Soviet times - as no doubt also Belarus itself

[Bobbisox1]

I hope all is okay there, I have two friends Nadia and Viktorya who are belarusian, I have messaged them a few times without a reply which is quite unusual, they came over here as small frightened girls after the Chernobyl disaster to stay with a friend and her husband for two weeks, we have kept in touch ever since

[dannyk13]

The people of Belarus are white Russians.

[ichkeria]

I hope so Bobbi.
It’s a bad time to be in Belarus lately and the regime has really wielded an iron fist

[Canary42]

So the satellite states have become worse since the break up of the USSR.

The same will happen since the break off from the EUSSR for GB, mark my words.

[Bobbisox1]

I’m wondering if their FB could be getting monitored ich ?

[Jackdaw33]

As Danny says. 'Bela' is derived from the Russian for white. I spent a month in Minsk in 1974 as a student in the Brezhnev days. Russian propaganda was everywhere; it has always been the most loyal to Moscow. Although it has its own separate language Russian is far more widely spoken than Belorussian.

[ToraToraTora]

canary: "So the satellite states have become worse since the break up of the USSR." - how'd you work that out? They've mostly got better and in the case of Belarus, stayed the same

"The same will happen since the break off from the EUSSR for GB, mark my words. " - glad to see you are calling it by its correct name, it's the EUSSR that is moving towards more and more state control me old china.

[ichkeria]

“ I’m wondering if their FB could be getting monitored ich ?”

Probably not in fairness unless they are journalists or involved in the protests.
When did you last hear?

The big shock was the effective hijacking by the regime of a Ryanair plane a few months back and what amounted to the state kidnap or two of the passengers

[Bobbisox1]

Must be at least 6/7 weeks ago ich , No, they’ve nothing to do with journalism , they’re both Nurses now

[ichkeria]

Having been lucky enough never to have lived in a police state I can’t really say, but fingers crossed

[Bobbisox1]

And yet the photos she sends me are of a very pretty place ? I thought it would be flag and colourless for some reason :0(

[ichkeria]

Oh no Belarus is a very beautiful country indeed.
Lots of trees :-)

[Peter Pedant]

// Belarus has always been the Soviet Union ...//

thx and well done Itch - BA for itchy !

Belarus is the last of the old Soviet Union, which TTT wiv all his EUSSR clag of yesteryear ReallY Should Know

Lukashenkos eldest is in charge of the Olympic effort and is not short on imprisoning 'failures' in gulags ( lots to choose from)

Saddam Hussein's totally crazy son Udam imprisoned and tortured the Iraq football team he was in charge of. - when they lost

[Peter Pedant]

your knowledge of eastern europe is extensive and impressive itchy - you found the cockpit recordings of the downed airliner I recollect

[ichkeria]

Erm not exactly …

I found some SBU intercepts available in open source.
Other than that, the brilliant Bellingcat group have shown how hard it is for the nefarious to cover their tracks.
To this day Russia still claims MH17 was shot down by Ukraine, the CIA, Lord Lucan or whoever despite us having recordings of the rebels going “oh **** we’ve hit a civilian airliner!”
And ordinary folks in Donbas were able to take pics of the missile launcher on its merry way …

[Bobbisox1]

My young friends live in Gomel ich