Belarus began to interfere in the work of Russian media

Belarusian officials are trying to influence publications in Russian media. Kommersant is accused of spreading slander and undermining trust within the Union State, Channel One is accused of supporting the singer who “insulted” Alexander Lukashenko, and the Russian Forbes was forced to completely remove an article about him.

Thus, Alexander Shpakovsky, a member of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus, wrote that the Russian publication Kommersant published “slanderous information” about Belarus’s intention to refuse servicing payment cards of the Mir system.

The publication's article, citing a source in the banking market, states that the Belarusian payment system Belkart, following Armenia and Kazakhstan, may in the future stop servicing Mir cards, since the country's banks still issue cards of international payment systems and may fall under sanctions.

“It must be emphasized that the publication of Kommersant has all the signs of classic information sabotage aimed at undermining trust within the Union State of Belarus and Russia,” writes Shpakovsky.

According to him, Belarus continues to serve the cards of the Mir system and “does not intend to deviate from its allied obligations.”

“I urge the sensationalist editors of Russian publications to remove Kommersant’s unverified information from their resources in order to avoid corresponding reputational and other risks,” added Shpakovsky.

At the same time, the Ambassador of Belarus to Russia Dmitry Krutoy called the appearance of singer Anzhelika Agurbash in the propaganda story of Channel One about the children’s music competition “Golden Note” a provocation.

In Belarus, two criminal cases have been opened against Agurbash: for inciting social hostility and discord (Part 3 of Article 130 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus) and for publicly insulting Alexander Lukashenko (Part 2 of Article 368). Agurbash supported the Belarusian opposition, and the country's authorities demanded her extradition from Russia. However, this did not happen, since the singer has Russian citizenship.

“We consider the appearance of A.A. Agurbash on the air of the Russian federal television channel on the Day of Unity of the Peoples of Belarus and Russia as a planned provocation aimed at undermining the unity of peoples, the efforts of our leaders to ensure the security of the Union State, joint resistance to the rehabilitation of Nazism and the rewriting of history,” it says in a letter from Krutoy, which was addressed to the general director of the channel, Konstantin Ernst. It was published by Sota.

Earlier, the Russian edition of Forbes magazine deleted the article by journalist Kirill Krivosheev, “Lukashenko’s Parabola: How the Belarusian President Experienced a New Political Birth,” which was published at the end of February. Forbes management did not say anything about the reasons for this decision.

In turn, the Belarusian propagandist Ivan Eismont said in the “Editors Club” program that the article was deleted, since “the times of slop for money from NGOs and NGOs are passing in Russia,” and in Belarus “are long gone.”

“There will be surplus appropriation and tax in kind. And it will hurt businessmen, NEPmen and other Judas slime,” wrote another Belarusian propagandist Grigory Azarenok. At the same time, he called Krivosheev’s article “dirty” and the journalist himself a “faggot” who worked at Kommersant.

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