Propagandists Wanted To Show 'Repentant' Video With 'Rail Partisans', But Something Goes Wrong
- 31.08.2022, 12:25
Instead, they showed portraits of strong men.
BT aired a story with the defendants in one of the most recent Rail Partisan cases. The television tried to show them regretting their actions and expressing grievances against their "supervisors". Instead, they ended up with portraits of strong people that can be seen even through the montage, writes Nasha Niva.
The first to speak is Kanstantsin Yarmalovich, who was sentenced to 16 years in prison. The man is confident, even though he is well aware of the big sentence and despite the attempts of propagandist Ksenia Lebedziava to throw him off his stride.
Lebedziava asks him: "Why did you do it and what are you willing to serve 16 years for?" And the guy calmly replies:
"To put it as compactly as possible, it was an expression of our personal protest, to show our disagreement with what was happening. Not for the opposition or anyone else. I don't know most of them, I'm not that interested."
In 2021, they made so-called "plants" on the railway, made fake explosive devices, also tried to set Tabakerka on fire and burned down the shooting hall. Yarmalovich admits that this could be called terrorism. "Yes, what we were doing is, in terms of the law, illegal stuff," he says calmly.
Here Lebedziava adds her remark: "Do you know why he says 'from the point of view of the law'? Because in terms of morality he thinks he is right". She throws in such arbitrary remarks throughout the entire piece.
A group of "rail partisans" made three stretches on the rails. The result was supposed to be a delay in train traffic. Kanstantsin says that it was a form of economic pressure on the authorities for them.
The man says that in all cases the administrators of the Busly Liatsiats group had access to inside information about the incidents on the railway. And after each of fake mining they posted reports on the incidents together with a video.
Then they give the floor to Vital Minkevich, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison (propagandists decided not to specify his name and signed him "Viktar" in the video). He says that the campaigns were not going perfectly well and there were always faults, so he is dissatisfied with the way they were going.
Asked why they didn't stop, he remarks: "It's hard to stop when you start acting, you don't even see such a way to stop."
Yarmalovich talks again about the operation with burning down the shooting hall, which belonged to military unit 5527. He says that they pulled down the tyres, which were used as a fence, found some pieces of wood, put them all together and set them on fire. The incident took place during the night of September 23 and 24, 2021.
In his opinion, that was not a very successful event, as he did not get a good video of it. However, judging from the photo in the propagandists' story, the shooting hall burned down.
The guy goes on to talk about the attempted arson of Tabakerka. At that time the group poured petrol over the ground along the kiosk and installed a clock mechanism nearby which was supposed to set it on fire. However, it did not work.
The third person involved in the case, Ihar Kazlou, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison, was also interviewed. However, his answers probably did not satisfy the propagandist and they were not included in the story.
Natallia Polkina, who was sentenced to two years in prison, and Natallia Ked, who was sentenced to two years of serving the sentence at the place of residence, were also tried with this group. They were all detained back in the autumn of 2021, a couple of days after the shooting hall was set on fire. The women were accused of burning down together with the "rail partisans" an effigy of Lukashenka in March 2021.