Ihar Ilyash’s political analyst commented in his Telegram channel on the recent press conference attended by security forces and political prisoner Raman Pratasevich.
“The press conference with the participation of Raman Protasevich is just another propaganda operation, which was carried out so clumsily that it can only harm the regime,” he notes.
According to Ilyash, the press conference shows that “the authorities are confused.” The official Minsk did not expect that the incident with the Ryanair flight would “qualitatively change the West’s attitude towards the dictatorship in Belarus.”
“Lukashenka’s regime has turned into a problem for European security. For the first time in its history, it is threatened by really serious economic sanctions. Therefore, the regime is desperately trying to somehow fix the situation, inventing new excuses and propaganda tricks on the fly,” he says.
Ilyash considers that the idea to involve Raman Pratasevich and security officers at the briefing of the Foreign Ministry (it was the Foreign Ministry that formally organized the event) came up at the very last moment. “Moreover, the impression is that the security officials were even more worried than Pratasevich himself — they were not expecting to have to take responsibility for everyone and were nervously twiddling their pens,” adds the analyst.
“Add to this the recent tearful address of “deputies” to the world community and yesterday’s flamboyant interview of Makey. All this points to the fact that moods close to panic now prevail in the higher echelons of power,” he says.
Besides, according to Ilyash, the press conference demonstrated that the authorities have “completely lost touch with reality”:
“Of course, it didn’t happen yesterday, but today’s press conference is vivid proof of this. The regime has completely lost all reference points of civilization, so even their attempts to justify themselves now look absolutely barbaric.
They are completely convinced: if a hostage is dragged to a press conference and forced to repeat that he is in a “good mood” in prison and “sincerely respects Lukashenka,” the West will stop trusting Tsikhanouskaya. They are convinced: if the Polish consul is filmed and then shown to the whole world, then everyone will understand that it is possible to deal with official Minsk after all. But in reality, the reaction will be just the opposite.”
