Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has announced the arrest of a “Ukrainian special service terrorist” and his accomplices involved in an attempt to sabotage a Russian A-50 plane at Machulishchi airfield in late February. Lukashenka spoke about it on March 7 at the state awards ceremony in Minsk. Previously, the Belarusian authorities did not confirm information about the attack on the airfield.
According to the president, who son Belta, in 2014 the special services of Ukraine recruited a native of Krivoy Rog with Ukrainian and Russian passports.
“Computer specialist or knowledgeable in computer technologies. He was preparing to carry out terrorist acts,” Lukashenko said.
The operation, according to him, was drawn up “eight or six months ago” with the participation of the Ukrainian Security Service and “the leadership of the CIA”.
“What we have seen was really something amazing. The highest technologies were involved. He (saboteur) was trained in all this for more than a month,” the Belarusian president said.
According to him, the saboteur’s route to Belarus passed through Poland, Latvia and Russia. The attack on the airfield was carried out using a “small Chinese-made drone” which was “sold to the United States and then sent back to Ukraine”, Lukashenko said.
“This attack was prepared. Fortunately, the aircraft did not suffer any significant damage, except, as they say, scratches and a hole in the hull, which does not prevent the military aircraft from performing its duties, ” said the Belarusian president.
According to him, Russia took the damaged aircraft for maintenance and provided another one to Minsk.
Incident A-50
On February 26, the telegram channel of the Belarusian opposition initiative BYPOL (recognized as an extremist in Belarus) reported two explosions at Machulishchi airfield, following which a Russian early warning and control aircraft A -50 was damaged. The explosions were also reported by Semyon Pegov, the founder of telegram channel WarGonzo, citing sources.
BYPOL claimed the plane “definitely wouldn’t fly anywhere” after the incident. The channel later said the attack was carried out using two drones packed with explosives along with striking elements.
On March 1, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense released a video with a working A-50, but did not say when the video was taken. In the plot of the Belarusian Television News Agency (ATN) said that it is “the same plane that became the protagonist of another extremist fake on the run the day before”. Belarusian Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Ambrazevich in a conversation with Reuters also expressed the opinion that information about the attack was “false”. The Kremlin declined to comment on the situation, citing Minsk’s rebuttal.
March 2 ATN published footage of the A-50 in the air, noting that it is “the same superliner” burnt out and disassembled “in combat duty”. Belta the same day writing that the “exploded” A-50 accompanied Lukashenko’s plane, which was returning from China to Minsk.
The Belarusian portal “Zerkalo”, in turn, published a transcript of a telephone conversation with the reception of the Taganrog Aviation Scientific-Technical Complex named after GM Beriev, where the publication received information that on 2 March, the A-50 aircraft arrived in Taganrog for repairs.
