A Cow In Underpass

The head of the colony laughed: she found one to write to.

Aliaksandr Lukashenka is the silver medalist in the rating of the Ukrainians' distrust. He is only three per cent away from "gold" (some fatal figure for him, really). Certainly Putin is the champion - 97% of Ukrainians do not trust him (I'd like to see the other three, but they are surely relatives of Medvedchuk and friends of the crazy youth of Yanukovich). Lukashenka has 94. These are the results of the latest survey conducted in Ukraine at the request of the New Europe Center and published two days ago.

Only a year ago, according to the results of the same survey, 36% of Ukrainians trusted Aliaksandr Lukashenka - more than they trusted Biden and Macron (they failed to reach 30% then). And these are not three and six, not the relatives of Medvedchuk, but millions of citizens of a democratic country. Repressions were raging in Belarus. Thousands of Belarusians went to jail, tens of thousands fled the country, and hundreds of thousands deleted Telegram from their smartphones before stepping outdoor. Nevertheless, Lukashenka was still quite popular in Ukraine. Of course, people did not take him seriously, but joked about him and willingly used the expressions that the Belarusians were fed up with: "Well, how is your Batska? Is he still screwing everybody over there? Well, he's a funny guy. Why don't you like him?”

Certainly, every Belarusian has had more than one dialogue of this kind when he/she had to explain to a friendly interlocutor from the neighboring country that no one in Belarus calls Lukashenka "Batska" because Belarusians love and respect their own parents and do not accept impostors. That there's nothing "funny" about him. The statement "but you don't have oligarchs" is immoral with this "but". There is no social state. The underpasses for cattle are a myth, obviously not invented in Belarus (oh, how many times I have lost my voice, proving to Ukrainians and Russians that our cows and sheep do not walk in disciplined herds through underpasses!) That "collective farms and factories kept working" was not about him, the free high-quality health care is a joke even worse than underpasses for cattle. That Ukraine has the sixth President, while the Belarusians have Yermoshina and her company. But no verbal arguments, no examples, figures, names could break through the indulgent-sympathetic attitude to Lukashenka. Only the rockets flying from Belarus to Kyiv could open people's eyes.

But do we, Belarusians, really need bombs falling on our homes? Can't we understand without bombs that Lukashenka cannot be trusted a bag, to give money for a ride, to carry a folder with documents? I don't know how many megatons a bomb should carry to make everyone realize this. I don't want shells to give that lesson. I hope our historical experience is enough.

And if it is not, here is the most recent example: Sophia Sapega, who was denied a pardon. Aliaksandr Lukashenka discussed her arrest with Putin. After that, Makei stated that the girl would be pardoned or transferred to Russia to serve her sentence after the trial. However, Makei never spoke on his own behalf, in case anyone has forgotten. Sapega's defense did not even appeal against the verdict, so that the pardon could happen soon. The relatives paid 167,500 rubles - the entire amount of compensation for "moral damage" appointed by the court. The administration of the colony wrote a positive characteristic. They also thought that since Makei was talking and Lukashenka was discussing her with Putin and all the newspapers were writing about it, the problem had been solved, so they didn't want to cause any trouble. Sofia's lawyer said that his client would be released before the end of the year (last year, of course). And now the pardon has been denied.

Those who consider it's not enough - here's a story of political prisoner Alena Movshuk. Back in November 2021, the head of the colony summoned her and said she was "on the pardon list". He personally made up the text of the pardon petition. Yelena took dictation and hoped that since the warden himself spoke about a pardon list and told her what she had to write, it meant there was hope that she, a mother with many children, would still be released. Alena's pardon was denied exactly three weeks after she wrote her petition.

By the way, do you remember Voskresensky? He was on first-name terms with Lukashenka, who promised him on air: if you are ready to bear responsibility, I will release these scumbags. Alena Movshuk immediately told the head of the colony that she had written to Voskresenski and asked him to do so. The warden laughed: "You found one to write to!" And I tend to agree with him. But if I were the warden, I would react in the same way to any attempts to contact Lukashenka: "You found one to write to.

No, I do not mean relatives of political prisoners, who decided to talk to Lukashenka like civilized people, after which he would certainly start releasing the prisoners. Nothing of the sort, no analogies, I was just reminded of the stories about the disciplined Belarusian cows, crossing the road by the underpasses built especially for them.

Iryna Khalip, especially for Charter97.org

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