Putin Runs the Show in Belarus as Russia Keeps State TV on Air

(Bloomberg) -- While Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised security forces to back up his embattled Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko if necessary, the Kremlin has already sent urgent support in the form of state-media reporters.

“A state cannot live without state channels,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday, after the Kremlin-funded RT channel had deployed journalists to work at Belarusian state television and radio in place of hundreds of local staff protesting Lukashenko’s 26-year rule. RT can “make its own decisions about dispatching its employees,” he told reporters on a conference call.

Lukashenko, 66, continues to battle unprecedented opposition from Belarusians after he claimed to win Aug. 9 elections with 80% of the vote to secure a sixth term. Protests have continued daily since the vote, swelling to tens of thousands of people at demonstrations in the capital, Minsk, and other cities on weekends. The U.S. and the European Union have refused to accept Lukashenko’s victory, with the EU urging fresh elections.

Putin has endorsed the election result and last week said he’d agreed with Lukashenko to send Russian police reinforcements to help quell the unrest in Belarus, though he added he saw no need to do so yet.

Still, Moscow is rapidly escalating contacts with Lukashenko’s regime after Putin declared Belarus “the closest” ally for Russia in a state TV interview.

Debt Talks

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin travels to Minsk on Thursday after a request from Belarus to reschedule $1 billion in debt. The Belarusian defense minister is due to attend a meeting in Moscow on Friday with Russia and other former Soviet states that are part of a collective security agreement.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hosted his Belarusian counterpart Vladimir Makei for talks in Moscow on Wednesday and ruled out contacts with the anti-Lukashenko opposition, while claiming that the protests had drawn in 200 extremists from Ukraine.

Makei said the authorities, whose riot police have attacked protesters and been accused of torturing detainees, had prevented a “color revolution” directed from outside Belarus.

The opposition that united behind Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who’s now in exile in Lithuania, says she won the election and has called on Lukashenko to begin talks on handing over power.

Russian state media journalists, mostly from RT, arrived in Belarus last month to work at Belteleradiokompania after 300 employees went on strike, of which 100 resigned, the RBC newspaper reported Monday. The Belarusian state broadcaster, which controls several different TV channels, started using RT material, it said.

TV Crews

RT said its TV crews who were in Belarus reporting on the election and its aftermath were “able to provide some technical expertise to the local media as well as share some video content,” according to an emailed statement.

Lukashenko on Aug. 21 confirmed that Russian journalists were working in Belarus’s state broadcaster, describing it as a necessary measure after staff “went onto the streets and started to protest.”

Belarus has increased pressure on foreign media as well, revoking the accreditation of 17 journalists on Saturday.

Even as Kremlin-backed journalists began work in Belarus, other Russian reporters have been among media staff detained by riot police as they observed protests against Lukashenko.

Lavrov said Russia was “concerned” by the detentions, adding that Belarusian officials “responded promptly” when Moscow raised particular cases.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.