Grigory Yavlinsky’s web-site, 21.08.2020

29 years ago, a group of gray, but high-ranking Soviet officials tried to turn history back and return a huge country to the same gray past as they were. But hundreds of thousands of people across the country took to the streets to defend their future. Then, in August 1991, people had been openly demanding for several years already freedom and democracy, cessation of state lies, elimination of the command-administrative system, censorship and lawlessness… And the members of the State Emergency Committee [which attempted the coup] did not understand at all what was happening in the country, they lived as if in another world, they did not know what people wanted, what they hoped for, what they were striving for. This is generally typical of those who have been sitting at the top of power for decades. The State Emergency Committee did not believe that the absolute majority of the country’s citizens would be against them. Therefore, the coup – despite the fact that it was organised by the Chairman of the KGB, the Minister of Defence, and the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs – failed in just a couple of days, smashed to smithereens.

Now the situation with Lukashenko in Belarus is somewhat similar. Judging by the way his “communication” with the workers of Belarusian enterprises have been developing, how they are chanting “Go away!”, he has long since lost his authority and respect, lost touch with reality, with the Belarusian people. Moreover, with his cruelty, Lukashenko more than outdone the State Emergency Committee: on his hands there is the blood of Belarusian citizens who were beaten in the streets, tortured in prisons, kidnapped and killed. Lukashenko is an international criminal who has committed crimes against humanity, crimes without a statute of limitations.

He does not understand that the Belarusian people no longer want to endure lies, demagoguery and falsifications. People are outraged by the impudent violence and repression of the authorities who live on their taxes. Belarusians strive for a modern free life and defend their human dignity. They take to the streets of cities and demand changes.

Certainly, most of them understand that there is a long, dangerous and difficult road ahead to a new democratic statehood. Everything will be very difficult: Lukashenko feels that his time is up, but he hopes to prolong his days by continuing to intimidate people and physically crack down on opponents. The regime is seriously counting on undercover intrigues with the Kremlin, on Putin’s support, i.e., the Russian special services and security officials, Moscow propagandists, “advisers” of all types and professional provocateurs. All these “holiday makers” will be sent to Belarus to television, the state administration, the army, the police, the KGB… The goal is obvious – to try to preserve the authoritarian system in Belarus, completely subordinating it to Moscow (with or without Lukashenko – he does not really matter for the Kremlin, he can be replaced, if this simultaneously establishes maximum Russia’s control and an unconditional focus on Russia).

However, like in the case of the State Emergency Committee, neither Moscow hybrid manipulators, nor Lukashenko understand that the Belarusians no longer want a rightless and hopeless life. And if this is so, then sooner or later changes will come, no matter what. This is the course of History.

I express my solidarity with the Belarusian people in their striving for freedom.

Interview (August 2016) on the coup of August 1991 for Russia-24 television channel

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