I do wonder, and apologies if this is naive, but with Russian being the de facto official language in Belarus, is it clear that the siloviki are even Belarusian, not Russian? Would you know if the row of riot police were Russian?
I heard this narrative before, and it strikes me as odd that you would find enough people to bully its own nation into submission - physically in the streets.
But of course that happened in Poland too, where Russian was never a widely spoken language, so clearly it’s possible.
Oh yes, it's totally possible, and happened in Ukraine as well. Generally, a person is not inclined to think what they're doing is wrong, if their paycheck depends on it.
I heard this narrative before, and it strikes me as odd that you would find enough people to bully its own nation into submission - physically in the streets.
But of course that happened in Poland too, where Russian was never a widely spoken language, so clearly it’s possible.
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