The participants start gathering in Yakub Kolas Square in Minsk, then they marched to Victory Square and joined the state-run memorial event Belarus Remembers.
Part of Independence Avenue was sealed. About 1,000 people took part in the Immortal Regiment; they were having portraits of Stalin and their killed relatives, Soviet symbols, St. George’s ribbons and even Russian tricolors.
For the first time, the Immortal Regiment event was held in Russia’s Tomsk in 2011. Since the annexation of Crimea, the Kremlin has been cashing up much money to hold these rallies in all regions of Russia and abroad, including in Belarus. On May 9, one could see youngsters in red T-shirts with the inscription ‘Volunteers of Victory’. It is the movement that is responsible for financing the event. In turn, the ‘volunteers’ are paid from the Russian federal budget through Rospatriottsentr (Russian Patriotic Centre) and Rosmolodezh (Russian Youth).
Some participants were wearing clothes with symbols of unrecognised separatist republics, the inscription ‘Polite people’ and the image of Putin.
On May 8, the Minsk City Executive Committee gave permission for the Immortal Regiment procession in Minsk.
A day before, pro-Russian organisers of the Immortal Regiment action in Minsk spread information that they had not received permission to conduct a procession from the city authorities. In their special statement the organizers accused the Minsk City Executive Committee of ‘undermining the ideological foundations of the Union State of Belarus and Russia’, ‘nationalism’ and the support of collaborators.
When asked about the ban on the Immortal Regiment in Minsk, Belarusian president Alyaksandr Lukashenka said that it was a ‘sacred thing’ that would never be prohibited.
Dzyanis Ivashyn, an editor at OSINT website Informnapalm.org stressed that it was Russian organisations who mobilised Immortal Regiment participants in Minsk.
“One thousand people or one thousand and a half is their reserve, their maximum. I believe it is not enough to make a reality of any scenario of the annexation of Belarus. Therefore, Russian ‘tourists’ may enter Belarus and carry out some subversive acts and provocations under the guise of Belarusians,” he told Belsat TV.
Photo by Iryna Arakhouskaya, Belsat
‘Polite People’, photo by Iryna Arakhouskaya, belsat.eu
Pro-Russian activist Syarhei Lanavenka in T-shirt ‘Donetsk People’s republic’, belsat.eu
Photo by Iryna Arakhouskaya, belsat.eu.
