Former Chief of TelegramNextaThe editor said he “admits” his guilt in organizing acts that violate public order.
The trial of R. Pratasevičius has not yet begun, his communication with the lawyer is limited, but the state TV channel has already announced A. Pratasevičius’ “confession”.
A journalist with wounds on his wrists is “criticizing” Belarusian opposition figures, including comrades Pavel Latska and Sviatlan Cichanouskaya. According to him, the departed opposition is financed by “Lithuanian taxpayers, the Belarusian diaspora and businessmen”.
According to R. Pratasevičius, he had a conflict with some opposition leaders who “demanded to continue to invite people to take to the streets”, although he himself considered it meaningless.
The former editor-in-chief of Nexta said he had been told: “there will be no street – no sanctions”. According to him, the opposition needs sanctions against Belarus so that the country’s economy “collapses as soon as possible” and protests start as a result.
Mr Pratasevic also said he “respected” Western unrecognized Belarusian President Aliaksandr Lukashenko.
“I will not hide, I have been very critical of Aliaksandr Grigorjevičius. It seemed to me there were reasons for that, but I was a journalist all my life. As I began to become more involved in political work rather than journalism, the more I wanted to escape from there and the more I began to realize that many of the things that were criticized by Alexander Grigorievic were really just a means of pressure. And that he has behaved in many moments, I apologize for such an expression as a man with iron eggs, “said Lukashenko, a former editor of Nexta.
He called his trip to the Donbass “the biggest mistake of his life”. There he allegedly violated journalistic ethics. He called it a “logical” case in the self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic” and said he was afraid of extradition.
The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Luhansk People’s Republic said it was investigating “Pratasevičius’ possible involvement in military operations in eastern Ukraine, in the Azov Battalion.” On the eve, the authority announced that it had found that “R. Pratasevic was involved in the shooting of peaceful Donbass residents and the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and called on Belarus to investigate. He was prosecuted in a self-proclaimed republic. Pratasevičius “committed extremely serious crimes” using “heavy weapons”, including cannons, mortars and anti-aircraft weapons, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Luhansk People’s Republic.
Andrijus Bileckis, the former commander of the Azov Battalion, confirmed that R. Pratasevičius worked as a journalist in Donbas. “Yes, Raman actually fought against the occupation of Ukraine together with Azov and other military units. He was with us in Shirokin, where he injured him. However, his weapon as a journalist was not a machine gun, but a word, “A. Bileckis emphasized.
Mr Lukashenko said Pratasevic faced the death penalty for “killing people” in Donbass.
‘A. Pratasevičius repeats propaganda statements. The information expressed in my address means only one thing: a person is simply tortured, he is forced to give false testimony, ”P. Latuška told The Insider.
R. Pratasevičius’ father, who saw the interview, told Dožd television that he was convinced that his son was under pressure from the KGB. According to him, his girlfriend may be sitting in the adjoining cell, so he is afraid.
R. Pratasevičius’ father also said that neither the lawyer nor the doctors were allowed to see his son.
“Knowing his son, all that Raman says, he does not speak for himself. Look at his first reaction at the beginning of the video, and even in the course of the video it is very clear that there is a struggle inside him between what he has to say and what he doesn’t want to say. It is very difficult for him, I am convinced that he was forced, I am convinced that he was intimidated, “said Dmitrijus Pratasevičius.
Ramanas Prataseviius
© Stopkadras
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Delphi recalls that the former Nexta editor aired on ONT for the second night in a row.
Belarusian opposition blogger R. Pratasevich, who was arrested in Minsk after being forcibly landed “RyanairPassenger liner, he said in a video of the prison that he was harmed by “his”.
The recording was shown late Wednesday on a one-hour show aired on state-controlled television ONT. Pratasevich, 26, also says in the post that protests against Belarusian authoritarian President Lukashenko are now meaningless because of their severe repression, and suggest the opposition wait for a more favorable moment.
The program said Belarusian officials were unaware that Pratasevičius was on a Ryanair plane flying from Athens to Vilnius on May 23, which air traffic controllers had directed to Minsk because of a bomb threat.
No bomb was found in the landing plane, but Belarusian officials arrested R. Pratasevičius and his friend, a Russian citizen studying in Vilnius, who flew in it.
Mr Lukashenko provoked international outrage by ordering a fighter jet to take over the passenger liner. In response, the European Union banned Belarusian national air carrier Belavia from entering its airspace, urged European companies not to fly into Belarusian airspace and issued new sanctions on important sectors of the Belarusian economy.
Mr Lukashenko, who has 9.3 million. Belarus, which has a large population, has been ruled by an iron fist for more than a quarter of a century, accusing the West of trying to “stifle” its country with sanctions.
After last year’s presidential election last August, which the opposition and Western democracies see as rigged, Belarus has been shaken for months by unprecedented mass protests. Mr Lukashenko was declared the winner of that vote and secured for the sixth term.
The Minsk regime has taken brutal measures to suppress the protest movement. Over 35 thousand were arrested. people, several protesters were killed and all of Lukashenko’s main opponents were imprisoned or forced to go abroad.
More than 400 protesters were sentenced to severe prison terms.
Pratasevic, who left Belarus in 2019, became one of Lukashenko’s main opponents. He ran the popular telegram platform Nexta, which played a key role in organizing anti-government protests, and was accused of inciting mass unrest. He faces up to 15 years in prison for this.
Mr Lukashenko last week accused Mr Pratasevičius of inciting a “bloody rebellion”.
In the above-mentioned ONT show, R. Pratasevičius acknowledged that the protests had subsided and said that the opposition should wait until the economic problems lead to the dissatisfaction of a large part of the society.
“We have to wait for the economic situation to get worse … and people to take to the streets because of, so to speak, a bowl of soup,” he said.
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