DISINFO: The coup attempt in Belarus aims to relive Nazism
SUMMARY
Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko is convinced that the attempt to relive Nazism in Belarus failed, despite foreign financial injection and direct participation in the organisation of protests. The main role in the organisation of street riots is played by foreign puppeteers and their accomplices-collaborators, who couldn’t prove their political importance in any other way. We have seen these people in German news programmes, marching enthusiastically with white-red-white flags and portraits of the Führer.
RESPONSE
This is a mix of several recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives, accusing political opponents of being Nazis and foreign puppets, in this case to discredit popular protests against electoral fraud in Belarus. No evidence is provided to support these narratives.
Protests in Belarus erupted to contest the results of the presidential election in Belarus on the 9th of August, which were not monitored by independent experts, and are largely considered fraudulent by both international observers and a large part of the Belarusian society. Contrary to the claim, the goals of demonstrators has been to demand the end of Lukashenko’s authoritarian rule, not to relive Nazism.
See other examples of these disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that extremists and Nazis are being trained in Ukraine to act in Belarus; that the flag of the Belarusian opposition was a symbol of Nazi collaborators; that Nazi ideology was the only one allowed in Ukraine after February 2014; or that the West uses neo-Nazis to destabilise Russia and its neighbouring states.