Borislav Bereza: Lukashenka's Plane Takes Not Only His Family To Turkey

From the first moment of Prigozhin's rebellion, the dictator has been saving his own skin.

On 23 June, Wagner's leader Evgeny Prigozhin announced the start of a military coup. Wagner's convoys of armoured vehicles entered the Moscow region and came within 200km of Moscow, whereupon Prigozhin announced the withdrawal of his army. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Prigozhin had been cleared of mutiny charges and was now living in Belarus.

What role did Belarusian dictator Lukashenka play in Prigozhin's failed coup? Charter97.org spoke to Ukrainian politician and former Verkhovna Rada deputy Boryslav Bereza about this.

- Lukashenka, the Belarusian dictator, has played the role assigned to him by the Kremlin, namely the man with a "negotiator's coat". In fact, everyone understands that Lukashenka, who is dependent on Putin's sneeze, is not seen by Prigozhin as a guarantee of anything. The negotiators, left behind the screens, used Lukashenka as a cover. And he is playing the part of the clown and enjoying a moment of pseudo-fame, so that there is no doubt as to what place the Kremlin has chosen for Lukashenka.

- At 00:01 on 24 June, a government business jet carrying Lukashenka's family took off from Minsk National Airport. It flew to Turkey. Why did the dictator decide to re-insure himself? What was he afraid of?

- Lukashenka was well aware that the fall of Putin's regime was not a matter of months, weeks or even days, but of hours. He also knew that his power, based on the money of the Kremlin and the security services of Belarus, would be virtually destroyed by the next wave. So he prepared to flee.

I think there were not only family members on that plane, but also some valuables that he immediately tried to evacuate in order to secure his life abroad. Dictators are cowards. Lukashenka is only interested in saving his own skin and a moment of glory. He got his moment of glory later, but he saved his own skin from the first moment of Prigozhin's rebellion.

- At the same time, the Belarusian dictator stated that he had put the Belarusian army on alert when Prigozhin's mutiny began. Could Lukashenka have supported the rebels if he had seen things developing in Putin's worst-case scenario?

- Lukashenka could only support the rebels if they had won. Then he would have said that he had "supported Prigozhin for a long time", almost "since childhood", "always believed in him", and "Putin disappointed him". Because it was Putin who "started that affair" which ended in nothing and "dragged both Lukashenka and Prigozhin into fornication". These are the words the moustached dictator would have used to save his own skin. He would have been one of the first to kiss Prigozhin's ass and talk about how much he "admires the wisdom and foresight" of "Putin's chef".

Prigozhin would probably accept this graciously. Besides, Lukashenka knows how to kiss dictators' parts; he has had good practice kissing Putin's ass. So nothing new, asses change, but Lukashenka's approach remains the same.

- Lukashenka said too much yesterday and tried to present himself as "Russia's saviour", which is very humiliating for Putin. Russian propagandists have also noticed this. Will Putin take revenge on Lukashenka for this humiliation?

- Putin now has such a long list of people to take revenge on that I am not sure Lukashenka will be at the top of the list. It's true that Lukashenka is just a clown in Putin's eyes, but it was actually Prigozhin who humiliated him. Humiliated him by making him afraid, humiliated him by showing him that no one is around.

All his entourage, all Putin's servants, fled in business jets as soon as there was a real threat of the government being overthrown. Prigozhin has humiliated him by showing that there are no people behind Putin willing to protect their dictator. More generally, he has shown that Akela is old, misses the target and likely to be quickly replaced.

Putin will take revenge on Prigozhin, but not on Lukashenka; he will remain a court clown, allowed to talk a little more than the others, but still entertaining the tsar. Lukashenka's task was to draw attention to himself, to make himself the number one negotiator. Although in reality it was Dyumin, the governor of Russia, a man who is close to both Putin and Prigozhin, and a few other people who took part in the negotiations.

And Lukashenka is playing the negotiator, but as usual he is overacting. He is a bad actor and a bad dictator. He is a lame dictator, a lame manager, a lame man. He is proving once again that his narcissism is a bad game.

Lukashenka is trying to show his greatness and importance by remaining at the level of a collective farm chairman. And a kolkhoz chairman will never become a good leader or anything else. He will dream of "being", but not of "becoming", that is Lukashenka. His main problem is that he wants to appear important. So he appears.

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