Paul
Goble
Staunton, February 2 – When Russians
talk about Russophobia or the destruction of Russia’s cultural inheritance,
Kirill Ozimko writes in “Vzglyad,” they usually talk about Ukraine or the Baltic
countries. They “almost never” talk about Belarus, “a fraternal republic with the
reputation of ‘the most Russian’ among the countries of the former Soviet
Union.
“No one can even imagine that
[Belarus] could sometime break away from the Russian world, reject the
historical heritage it has in common with Russia or stop using the Russian
language,” he writes. But as Ukraine shows,
all that is possible even if the situation in Belarus is not so dire from
Russia’s point of view (vz.ru/opinions/2016/2/1/791549.html).
There, Western propagandists have
been active, and Russia has done nothing, he says. “A little less than 25 years have passed
since the disintegration of the USSR, and the geopolitical orientation of the
population has turned upside down. What has happened? Something horrible: the
complete defeat of our country in the information war for Ukraine.”
“What has Russia done to maintain
fraternal allied relations with Ukraine? Nothing. All the post-Soviet history
of Russian-Ukrainian relations was reduced to unending conflicts over gas,
scandal around the Black Sea Fleet, and ineffective talk about partnership.”
Ozimko continues.
Meanwhile, “Ukrainian nationalists
with the financial support of the West are actively conducting an information
working over of the Ukrainian people, and in the first instance, of young
people … As is clear,” he says, “the West already long ago recognized that in
our information age, the occupation of territories takes place not by the
traditional path but through the manipulation of public opinion, through
winning the minds of people.”
“Today, Belarus is the information
battlefield,” and again, the West is “quietly approaching victory. The authorities of the republic are trying to
control the information space there, but practice shows that the development of
contemporary technologies reduces all such attempts to nothing.”
Moreover, “if earlier it was
possible to ban the publication and import of harmful newspapers, journals and
books, today, the Western partners fight for the minds of Belarusians from the
territory of neighboring states, using money from Western foundations and even
government budgets.”
In Poland, Charter 97 has its
offices and directs its Internet operations at Belarusians in Belarusian,
Russian and English. It calls Russians “’occupiers’” and “’historical enemies
of Belarusians.’” It labels Lukashenka “’a dictator’” and predicts the end of
Putin and his “’horrific empire.’” And its site is getting thousands of views.
“At the same time,” Ozimko says, “not
a single pro-Russian site for Belarusians can compete with Charter 97 in
popularity. In general, there are practically no sites of this kind at all.” And the handful that do exist are amateur
operations without the kind of financial backing they should have.
Also in Poland, there is a satellite
television channel in Belarusian and directed at Belarus. Several dozen journalists in Belarus, Poland,
Lithuania and the Czech Republic work for it; and its broadcasts use the same anti-Russian
language that Charter 97 does. And once again, there is no “Russian response to
such television for Belarusians.”
Given this imbalance between Western
efforts and Russian inaction, the West’s policy “sooner or later will lead to
its success” and to Russia’s defeat, especially since surveys show that “already
today, young men and women of the neighboring republic prefer pro-Western
movements.”
In sum, what happened in Ukraine is
happening again in Belarus, albeit “much more slowly.” That gives Moscow a chance if it in fact gets
involved in the information war rather than sits on the sidelines and assumes
it can hold Belarus by giving “unending credits” to the Belarusian government.
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