Belarus arrests several people for planning ‘terrorism and sabotage’ on opposition’s orders

On October 16, the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs announced the arrest of several people who were allegedly preparing “acts of terrorism and sabotage” on instructions from “the opposition in exile” and ByPol.

The suspects allegedly received “assignments to plant bombs” and “instructions on where to get incendiary mixtures” from the Peremoga Plan chatbot. The ministry says the suspects are giving their confessions.

Deputy Minister Gennady Kazakevich said that the Peremoga Plan involves the violent overthrow of the Belarusian state and that within its framework “participants in illegal military formations train on Polish territory and gain combat experience on Ukrainian territory.”

On October 14, the publication Zerkalo wrote about reports of a Peremoga Plan launch, which opposition representatives said were fake. Alexander Azarov, a member of Tsikhanouskaya’s Belarusian Coordination Council for the Transfer of Power and a ByPol representative, said that Belarusian authorities launched the fake in order to identify and arrest possible participants in the project.

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On October 14, the head of the Belarusian foreign affairs ministry announced a new counter-terrorism operations regime due to the risk of “provocation by certain neighboring governments,” however the KGB called information about the counter-terrorism operation “unreliable.” Alexander Lukashenko, in turn, announced “increased terrorist danger” and used it to explain the deployment of a joint Russian-Belarusian group of troops in the republic.