Belarus’ dictator Lukashenko seems to dream of the good old days of the USSR. Putin, however, would like to bring the little country back into the Russian fold without him and has the Wagner Group’s 171 mercenaries paling up to rebels. China stands in the background angling for their own dominance. How will this flashpoint play out? Brad Johnson, former senior CIA Officer and now president of Americans for Intelligence Reform weighs in on the conflict.
https://youtu.be/3jrJdp1ym9s
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brad johnson it is august the 5th of
00:02
2020
00:04
and there are continual developments
00:06
actually
00:07
on so many fronts um but this one’s on
00:10
belarus what did you want to tell us
00:12
about what’s taking place there
00:14
belarus very interesting place we’ve
00:16
been talking about it for a while
00:17
belarus has
00:18
always been very closely linked to
00:20
russia and basically
00:21
uh it it’s a dictatorship there and then
00:24
the guy in charge runs with an iron fist
00:26
and
00:26
all that but he was always looking for
00:28
kind of a a reassociation back to kind
00:31
of reinvent the
00:33
uh the ussr sort of thing so
00:36
long time relationship with russia
00:37
however now
00:39
that seems to be breaking up one of the
00:41
some of the stuff we’ve reported
00:42
previously is there was some competition
00:44
for the to occupy those bases in
00:48
belarus that are currently occupied by
00:50
the russians
00:51
and that the chinese are trying hard to
00:53
get in there
00:54
now this is consistent across the board
00:56
with with all this i believe all of this
00:58
to be
00:59
straight up true now part of what’s
01:02
happened just recently
01:04
and we mentioned a little bit of this
01:06
earlier but there’s a group called the
01:07
wagner group now wagner group
01:09
is essentially like blackwater was
01:12
blackwater used to do a lot of us
01:13
government contracting
01:15
and a lot of these people were armed and
01:17
would provide
01:18
physical security now there was a shoot
01:20
them up and some people got killed and
01:22
so blackwater kind of got into a lot of
01:24
trouble and
01:24
have changed their name and everybody at
01:26
the top i think is gone and it’s new
01:28
new management but wagner group is
01:30
similar in that sense they’re directly
01:32
tied to the kremlin
01:33
they have you know intelligence people
01:35
retired uh you know military guys go
01:37
into this
01:39
but they’re essentially a mercenary
01:41
group
01:42
tied close to russia and there was a
01:45
group maybe
01:46
a week ago now that got arrested
01:49
and they were doing some stuff in
01:50
belarus if they weren’t exactly able to
01:52
figure
01:53
out but they were worried that they were
01:55
making uh
01:56
you know inroads with with russian with
02:00
pro-moscow
02:01
russians that weren’t necessarily
02:03
supporting belarus
02:05
even though belarus has traditionally
02:06
been very pro-russia
02:08
so now it appears that there has been an
02:11
attempt
02:12
by putin to essentially take over
02:15
politically uh belarus and kind of
02:18
try to absorb it that way without having
02:20
to deal with the dictator who’s in
02:22
charge there
02:23
who doesn’t want to be under under the
02:25
thumb of putin
02:26
he wants a close association but not to
02:28
be controlled
02:29
now something happened that’s
02:31
interesting the initial group that was
02:33
arrested was so small
02:35
they weren’t sure really what they could
02:36
be up to but apparently that was a
02:38
leadership
02:39
cadre and there’s another another group
02:41
of 170 mercenaries from this
02:44
wagner group who are loose in belarus
02:46
now that starts to be
02:48
enough in a small country of belarus
02:51
that if they joined up with also
02:53
factions that are existing there that
02:55
this could be the
02:56
the root of an actual armed uprising so
03:00
that’s kind of what’s going on there
03:01
belarus has closed the border with
03:03
russia and
03:04
greatly limited down uh limited who can
03:07
come and go
03:08
and and and who gets through and all
03:09
those things so there is still some
03:11
things going back and forth but
03:13
far more limited now and belarus is very
03:16
suspicious of who’s trying to go through
03:17
there
03:18
because of this this group of 170 people
03:21
from
03:21
wagner group like i said those then you
03:23
start to get in
03:24
plus the people who are arrested you’re
03:25
looking at around 200
03:27
and uh you know trained mercenaries that
03:29
are then backed by local militias sorts
03:31
of guys
03:32
could start to get to be fairly
03:34
dangerous fairly quick so that’s kind of
03:36
a quick look at what’s going on belarus
03:38
china is involved as i said in the
03:40
background of all of this trying to
03:41
negotiate something to get control of
03:43
those spaces
03:44
for themselves so it’s an interesting
03:46
thing where you’re seeing
03:47
china and russia face off russia views
03:50
this as their backyard
03:52
so they’re not going to be happy about
03:53
any of this which is why
03:55
this wagner group being involved in
03:57
there actually has a lot of credibility
03:59
to me
04:00
because that would be the way to do it
04:02
they don’t want to send
04:03
russian troops in but they can send the
04:05
wagner group troops in there
04:07
who can accomplish all of the same th
04:09
same things but
04:10
allow a certain level of plausible
04:12
deniability
04:14
for russia trying to take political
04:15
control in belarus so
04:17
this is something that’s again it’s a
04:18
flashpoint this is not something i
04:20
expect to go into
04:22
full-blown war any revolution there
04:23
would be relatively small
04:25
but i do believe that this is a thing
04:27
that putin is not going to allow himself
04:29
to lose
04:30
and he doesn’t like that sort of thing
04:32
and he views it as his backyard so he’s
04:34
going to be
04:35
far more willing to throw a lot of
04:37
resources at this and waste
04:39
time and money and people and all of
04:40
that to make sure that this comes out
04:42
the way it wants so
04:43
this is kind of watching wait but i’m
04:45
i’m predicting pretty strongly that what
04:46
we’re going to see is a
04:48
you know a win in the scheme of things
04:50
for putin as this plays out but
04:52
uh there is there is some area for for
04:55
conflict with china over this as well
04:57
well we saw what he’s willing to do in
04:59
crimea so
05:00
it’s pretty easy to imagine what he’d be
05:02
willing to do in belarus
05:04
thank you very much for that all right
05:06
thank you
05:33
you
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