[Investigation] Exclusive: Lukashenko plotted murders in Germany

Lukashenko’s intelligence service, the KGB, additionally focused a Belarusian journalist, who was subsequently killed in Ukraine.

The revelations come as Lukashenko is making an attempt to crush a pro-democracy motion at house utilizing rising violence.

The truth his spy-master was so incompetent he let himself be bugged is a lack of face for the regime.

And this web site’s publication of the bugged KGB recording quantities to a public colonoscopy of Lukashenko’s most non-public organs of energy.

Bugged assembly

“The president [Lukashenko] is waiting for these operations,” Vadim Zaitsev, the then KGB chairman, stated in his workplace on Independence Avenue in Minsk shortly after 8.45AM on Wednesday 11 April 2012, in accordance with an audio file of the assembly, which was secretly recorded on a hidden machine, and shared with EUobserver utilizing a safe app.

Zaitsev was briefing officers from the KGB’s Alpha Group, an elite counter-terrorist unit.

More particularly, he was briefing members of the Alpha Group’s Seventh Department, a clandestine task-force, which Zaitsev had created to focus on the regime’s political enemies.

And Zaitsev was speaking about killing three of them who lived in exile in Germany – Oleg Alkaev (a Belarusian former jail director), Vladimir Borodach (an ex-colonel), and Vyacheslav Dudkin (a former anti-corruption chief).

Lukashenko had put “over $1.5m [€1.2m] in a dedicated account” for off-the-books operations of this kind and needed to “see some results,” Zaitsev stated, within the bugged 2012 assembly.

He needed to depart no hint of KGB suspicion in Germany.

“It’s important to me that no one even thinks about the KGB,” Zaitsev stated.

“It’s clear how we could drown or shoot someone. It’s clear. But how to initiate a chance explosion, how to start arson and not leave traces, murder, and stuff like that – this is unclear,” he stated.

The KGB additionally mentioned killing a Belarusian-born journalist, Pavel Sheremet, who was dwelling in Russia on the time.

“We should be working Sheremet, who is a massive pain in the arse,” Zaitsev stated, in accordance with the 2012 recording.

But Lukashenko’s spy-chief needed Sheremet’s assassination to ship a public message.

“We’ll plant [a bomb] and so on and this fucking rat will be taken down in fucking pieces – legs in one direction, arms in the other direction. If everything [looks like] natural causes, it won’t get into people’s minds the same way,” Zaitsev stated.

Belarus had put Sheremet underneath commentary in Moscow, in accordance with an inner KGB surveillance report, which was additionally leaked to EUobserver.

Sheremet was later killed by a automobile bomb whereas he was in Kiev on 20 July 2016, echoing Zaitsev’s macabre phrases.

And 4 years later, Ukraine has nonetheless not caught the individuals who did it.

The bugged KGB recording from Zaitsev’s workplace, in addition to the leaked Sheremet surveillance report, had been initially obtained by Igor Makar, a Belarusian opposition activist, who despatched them to this web site in Brussels.

A 24-minute excerpt of the bugged recording, which has by no means earlier than come to gentle, is now revealed right here:

A transcript of the dialog can be learn in Russian or in English.

Zaitsev is the primary speaker, who begins with a stammer, and his voice within the recording might be overtly in contrast with one of many KGB chairman’s public speeches on YouTube.

It “sounds like the same guy”, a contact from a Nato nation’s intelligence service, who was aware of Zaitsev and who examined the bugged audio file for EUobserver, instructed this web site.

A forensic examination of the file was inconclusive.

The audio was too poor high quality, from a technical standpoint, to do biometric “speaker recognition analysis”, Catalin Grigoras, the director of the National Centre for Media Forensics on the University of Colorado within the US, who additionally examined the leaked file, stated.

It had been edited not less than as soon as, in all probability to delete a digital signature which may have recognized the KGB mole who planted the recording machine in Zaitsev’s workplace, Grigoras instructed EUobserver.

But the forensics skilled “didn’t find” any apparent “trace of audio-manipulation” on the file, he stated.

Makar’s testimony

For his half, Makar instructed EUobserver: “I’m prepared to testify in court that the bugged recording is authentic and that Zaitsev is the speaker in the audio file [published above]”.

“I’m ready to risk my life so that [Belarusian] people can be free, to help demolish this Lukashenko regime,” he stated.

Makar is a former special-forces officer, who used to serve within the Almaz Special Anti-Terrorism Unit, a Belarus inside ministry swat crew, however who now lives in hiding within the EU.

When he first acquired the KGB recording from his contacts again in 2012, Makar stated, he quietly shared it with a US diplomat within the EU, whom he declined to call.

He did so within the hope of defending Alkaev, who was his pal, in addition to the opposite targets on the KGB’s kill-list, Makar instructed EUobserver.

And now, eight years later, Makar has determined to go public by additionally sharing the KGB audio file with EUobserver out of solidarity with Belarus’ pro-democracy protesters, who’ve endured 4 months of “beatings, tortures, rapes” since August 2020, he stated.

A second Belarusian supply, who didn’t need to be named, additionally instructed this web site that he would testify in courtroom, if want be, that the 11 April 2012 KGB assembly actually came about, that Zaitsev was there, that the bugged recording was genuine, and that it was Zaitsev’s voice within the audio file.

Alkaev, likewise, corroborated Makar’s account.

German authorities, shortly after Makar gave the file to the US diplomat within the EU, warned Alkaev that his life was in peril and gave him particular safety, in accordance with a German police letter from May 2012, which Alkaev confirmed to EUobserver.

“The [German] police told me they could guarantee my safety in Germany, but advised me not to leave the country,” Alkaev stated.

The German plot was by no means carried out and Zaitsev left the KGB in November 2012.

The former spy-chief is now director of a Belarusian broadcaster referred to as Cosmos TV.

EUobserver’s sources didn’t know if the Alpha Group’s Seventh Department was later disbanded or if it ever harmed anyone, regardless of the sinister implications of the leaked KGB surveillance report on Sheremet.

But Zaitsev’s boss, Lukashenko, who shared his prison mentality, remains to be in energy in 2021.

And Zaitsev’s former KGB deputy, Ivan Tertel, who was lately blacklisted by the EU for “torture” of pro-democracy protesters, and who additionally shared that mentality, is now the KGB chairman.

Meanwhile, among the homicidal concepts mentioned within the 2012 KGB assembly confirmed that EU residents, in addition to Belarusian refugees, had been in peril.

One of Zaitsev’s concepts was to get “a professional or a car mechanic who will do it in such a way that no fucking expert [in Germany] will figure out that the car was intentionally broken in advance and why it went off the fucking road,” he stated within the leaked audio file.

But use of explosives, proposed by one KGB officer within the assembly, may have harmed bystanders.

“We might need TNT, plastic explosives, detonators,” the unnamed KGB officer instructed Zaitsev within the audio file.

“Here’s another interesting suggestion … There’s a professor in Vitebsk [a town in north-east Belarus], who is a toxicology expert, knows both natural and artificial poisons very well,” the KGB officer additionally stated.

“There’s one amateur chemist who claims he can make any chemicals. You can even tell him the height and weight of the person and he can prepare [them] for anyone,” one other unnamed KGB officer stated on 11 April 2012.

“Go ahead and find this person [chemist] and then go get everything prepared,” Zaitsev stated.

EU safety

EUobserver’s KGB-plot revelation poses questions for the protection of Belarusian refugees dwelling within the EU in the present day.

Some 320 Belarusians have sought asylum in Poland since August final 12 months, when Lukashenko started his crackdown on protesters within the wake of rigged elections, the Polish inside ministry stated.

Another 67 have utilized in Lithuania.

There had been 100 Belarusian refugees already dwelling in Germany and greater than 400 others had utilized for asylum since 2019, the German inside ministry stated.

Poland declined to touch upon whether or not Belarusian refugees had been vulnerable to KGB surveillance or worse.

Egle Samoskaite, a spokeswoman for Lithuania’s intelligence company, the VSD, instructed EUobserver: “We haven’t got any signals, which could indicate an increased threat level for Belarusian exiles in Lithuania”.

And Germany “currently does not have any information to suggest Belarusian opposition activists living in Germany are at risk,” the German inside ministry’s spokeswoman, Alina Vick, additionally stated.

“Local police alone are responsible for protecting vulnerable persons. They would contact authorities responsible for the protection of the constitution [German intelligence] only in cases of apparently politically motivated threats,” Vick stated.

Opinion was blended amongst Belarusian refugees.

Alkaev and Makar, who lately fashioned a joint initiative referred to as the Belarusian People’s Tribunal, which outed a policeman who killed a pro-democracy protester referred to as Alexander Taraikovsky in Minsk on 10 August, stated they felt in danger regardless of dwelling within the EU.

Valery Tsepkalo, an opposition activist dwelling in Poland and the Baltic states, stated he didn’t.

“I’m driving on the highway with my wife as we speak and I feel fine,” he instructed EUobserver from Latvia.

Maksim Milta, a spokesman for the European Humanities University in Vilnius, which has a whole bunch of Belarusian college students, stated: “We haven’t yet witnessed any threat”.

Opinion additionally diverged amongst safety specialists.

“The Belarusian KGB would not hesitate to run operations against Belarusian exiles anywhere, their capabilities are not too impressive though,” Eerik-Niiles Kross, an Estonian MP who was once the nation’s nationwide intelligence coordinator, instructed this web site.

“Somewhere in the EU, like Germany, would be hugely problematic, somewhere like Ukraine … is more wide open [for a KGB strike],” Mark Galeotti, a British educational on the Royal United Services Institute, a think-tank in London, stated.

“They [the KGB] are active abroad in monitoring politically active émigrés, but they’re much more interested in domestic security,” Galeotti stated.

“I’ve never heard anyone [in security circles], even from … Poland or the Baltic states, say: ‘Oh, there’s a problem or serious operation under way’,” he added.

That nonetheless left the query of what Lukashenko was able to doing to Belarusian folks at house if the protests continued.

At least seven folks have been killed up to now, in remoted incidents.

And for Makar, the Belarusian ex-soldier, the KGB’s Alpha Group, or particular police models, resembling Almaz and Omon, wouldn’t hesitate to open fireplace on a crowd of demonstrators in the event that they had been ordered to.

“As soon as Lukashenko gave the order, they would start [shooting],” Makar stated.

For Alkaev, who was once answerable for dying row within the Belarusian jail system, some regime gunmen would possibly disobey.

“There are those who are sick in the head and who would shoot civilians, but there’s also normal people [in Belarus security forces] who wouldn’t take part,” Alkaev instructed EUobserver from Germany, the place he nonetheless lives.

“They’d deliberately shoot in the air or at doorposts, but not to hit anybody,” Alkaev stated.

If Lukashenko ordered the KGB to shoot folks, then his order must undergo Moscow, Kross, the Estonian skilled famous.

“Some consider the Belarusian KGB … a branch of Russia’s FSB [intelligence service]. They are in the same communications system, share databases, and rotate officers,” Kross stated.

“I’d think their [the KGB’s] loyalty to Lukashenko lasts until Moscow decides it’s no longer needed,” Kross added.

A deadly flare-up additionally risked testing the loyalty of the Belarusian army, Galeotti stated.

“The army has been very much kept out of it [Lukashenko’s crackdown] so far, except for one paratrooper unit,” the British skilled famous.

“If you saw Omon shoot your sister-in-law in the street, for instance, and you’re a Belarusian [army] captain, or colonel, or even a general – that’s a point where you might feel you have to do something,” Galeotti stated.

Painful publicity

Going again to Zaitsev’s 2012 assembly, the very fact Lukashenko’s spy-master was bugged and is now being uncovered is a severe lack of face for the dictatorship.

The KGB Alpha Group’s Seventh Department was meant to be so secret that even the colonel who was then answerable for the Alpha Group’s six different departments, Oleg Chernyshev, didn’t need to know what the seventh one was doing, in accordance with the Belarusian supply who requested to not be named.

But regardless of the tried secrecy, the bugged and leaked 11 April 2012 audio file shines a harsh gentle contained in the regime’s most non-public deliberations.

For one, it makes the nation’s safety elite sound like mobsters.

“How fucked up is that, this fuck-head … the fuck do I need that?”, Zaitsev, the nation’s then 48-year outdated intelligence chief, who was born in Dnipro, in jap Ukraine, in Soviet occasions, stated within the bugged assembly, in only a few of his quite a few vulgarities.

“Sadly, this is how they [Belarus security bosses] speak, because Lukashenko deliberately recruits badly educated people, whom he considers to be more loyal,” Makar, the 37-year outdated ex-soldier, who’s from Grodno in western Belarus, stated.

One of the KGB operatives deliberate to sneak into Germany on a six-month vacationer visa after being invited by “friends” who already lived there, the bugged file additionally reveals, indicating the weak point of EU border controls.

“They [Belarusian diplomats] can get me out [to Germany] in an embassy car, but I would not like to, especially for the first trip,” one of many unnamed KGB officers stated within the 2012 assembly.

The KGB males had entry to “fake documents”.

They deliberate to pose as Lukashenko “regime victims” to infiltrate the Belarus expat group in Germany and search out their targets.

They had been tasked with organising reconnaissance and recruiting native “agents” in Germany, a few of whom they’d train “sabotage techniques”, in accordance with the leaked audio.

“For surveillance, one can put two young people in the apartment block hallway who would kiss each other and not make any noise, drink beer, and so on, and no one cares,” Zaitsev instructed, in additional basic chat on KGB spy-craft.

He mirrored that it’d look odd, as if the KGB agent was “some kind of pervert, who only gets horny in the hallway, but not other places”, nonetheless.

So he mentioned hiring prostitutes to do the surveillance.

“Now Belokonev is reaching out to create a unit of the fucking girls. And everyone’s fucking looking at him … and I say it’s great, at least he’s able to think in a creative way,” Zaitsev additionally stated, in all probability referring to Oleg Belokonev, a Belarusian army officer, who was not current within the April 2012 assembly.

The Belarusian international ministry declined to remark, however considered one of its diplomats in Brussels, stated, usually, that EUobserver was “campaigning in favour of certain [Belarusian opposition] activists”.

Cosmos TV didn’t reply when this web site tried to achieve Zaitsev.