When people pack streets, KGB won't support Lukashenka

Alyaksandr Lukashenka personally introduced newly appointed KGB Chairman Valery Vakulchyk to the security agency's leadership on November 19. The head of state explained motives for the dismissal of the former KGB head Vadzim Zaytsaw during the meeting with the leadership. Mr. Lukashenka set a number of tasks before Mr. Vakulchyk.

UDF.BY interviewed Uladzimir Baradach, a retired Armed Forces colonel, and asked him about the reasons for KGB reshuffles.

- While introducing the new chairman Valery Vakulchik, Mr. Lukashenka warned the agency's leadership that the new chairman was "not a kind guy whom someone may have expected here" and stressed that Mr. Vikulchyk "is one of the few who know for sure what the president wants from the KGB." So, what does the president want from the KGB headed by Mr. Vikulchyk?

- Vikulchyk obliged to Zaytsaw and Rachowski by his sharp way up. They pushed him to the OAC [President's Operational and Analytical Center] and provided him with good specialists and, especially, with expensive and effective equipment giving the opportunity to obtain the information about all the high officials of the country.

They thought that he couldn't work without them independently, but they made a mistake. He gave not all the information through them up there. Viktar Lukashenka also got some of it.

Will he do everything what the president say? Lukashenka wants only one thing - to exterminate intelligence, initiative, the doubts about the right way of the country's policy that feeds [the authorities].

The KGB, as well as any other agency, won't support Lukashenka if people pack streets. None of the agencies will execute the order - to shoot the people. Lukashenka knows it very well.

-How do you think, what Mr. Zaitsaw didn't manage to do that Vikulchyk will manage?

- Zaitsaw was also far away from that what he headed, but he had good safety factor. This organization [the KGB] cannot collapse so fast even without a competent head. The system worked by itself, whereas it had been mixed with police and border guards, and this fact effected its effective functioning very much. But there was not such employee turnover anymore. Investigations and juggling with facts of the terrorist cases of 2008 and 2011 tell about it. The last explosion in Vietsebsk, the unskillfull balyhoo with the disclosure of terracts' preparation, the unconvincing and unprofessional capture of 'agent' of Polatsk...

When Vakulchyk comes, the remaining KGB professionals will run away and will be substituted for fellows with crowbars. They will try to scare the growing and protesting mass of our people.

- Mr. Lukashenka is ready to dismiss all the KGB staff and keep 3 thousand people who are the most devoted to the authorities. Mr. Vakulchik will work with such people. All the rest "to go somewhere they want to be." Is it then possible to make "a security service meeting present-day requirements"? And whether Mr. Lukashenka is ready to make this step?

- Yes, Lukashenka is ready to dismiss members of law enforcement agencies who want to eat, have families and personal life. However, he has no robots who can stupidly protect his idiosy, personal whims, the illumination of Belarus.

He stretches the truth: the most devoted people are his enemies. He needs people who are the most devoted to his clan. Vakulchyk will work exactly on this.