Explosion in Machulishchy: 20 people detained in Belarus, Lukashenko says; Security Service reacted to this
The self-proclaimed president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, said that the country has detained more than 20 people who are allegedly involved in the explosion of the A-50 aircraft at the Machulishchy military airbase.
Source: Belarusian state media outlet BELTA, source of Ukrainska Pravda in Security Service of Ukraine (SSU)
Quote from Lukashenko: "As for today, more than 20 accomplices were detained in Belarus. The rest are hiding there [abroad – ed.]."
Details: Lukashenko didn’t mention how exactly the Belarusians managed to identify the so-called infiltrators.
According to him, "God helped us and a miracle happened".
He claims that all "commands went from the SSU (Security Service of Ukraine) to fugitives abroad."
The SSU noted that they will not comment on the statement of the self-proclaimed president of Belarus, but will be able to report in detail about all "cotton" (explosion) cases after the victory. [Russian propaganda, initially refusing to use the word ‘vzryv’ (explosion), used ‘khlopok’ (a bang) instead. However, ‘khlopok’ also means ‘cotton’, and this has since become a meme – ed.]
Quote from the Security Service of Ukraine: "The Security Service of Ukraine has no intention of commenting on the words of a person who calls himself the president of Belarus. As for any cases of ‘cotton’, we will be able to talk about it in detail after our Victory."
Details: Lukashenko also stated that he ordered a "cleansing" in Belarus: "I ordered a few days ago to carry out the most severe cleaning throughout the country."
Then he started talking about the accomplices of "fascism" in Belarus and recalled the year 2020, when tens of thousands of Belarusians protested the results of the falsified elections, where Lukashenko allegedly won again.
Since then, hundreds of human rights defenders, journalists, and activists have received prison sentences in Belarus. The whole civilised world considers them political prisoners of the Lukashenko regime.
Previously: On 7 March, Alexander Lukashenko has said that Belarus had detained an alleged "terrorist of the Ukrainian secret services" and his accomplices, who were "involved in an attempted sabotage of an A-50 aircraft at the Machulishchy airfield". Earlier, Lukashenko did not admit that anything had happened in Machulishchy.
Background:
- On 26 February, explosions occurred at the Machulishchy airbase in Belarus in the morning. Later, there was information that a Russian A-50 military aircraft was damaged.
- Alexander Azarov, Head of the BYPOL initiative, reported that Belarusian partisans were involved in sabotage at the Machulishchy airbase in Belarus. According to Azarov, the participants of the alleged sabotage in Machulishchy had left Belarus and are now safe.
- After the explosion, the entourage of the self-proclaimed president of Belarus claimed that the A-50 was fine and posted allegedly "fresh videos", although the military monitoring media outlet Belaruski Hajun reported that the Russian aircraft flew to Taganrog, Russia, for repairs.
- Andrii Yusov, representative of Ukraine's Defence Intelligence, said that Russia cannot currently produce A-50 AWACS aircraft, one of which was probably damaged at the Belarusian Machulishchy airbase.
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