The paper trail behind 33 Russian citizens who were arrested in Belarus last week, and labelled mercenaries hired to destabilize the country, has been traced to Ukraine and could be a provocation by its intelligence services.
That's according to investigative journalist Aleksandr Kots of Moscow newspaper
Komsomolskaya Pravda, who is known to have good sources in the Russian military.
Last week, Belarus detained the Russians, described as a group of hired guns sent to orchestrate turmoil and torpedo the upcoming presidential election. The Russian citizens were named as members of Wagner, a Russian private military company (PMC) accused in the West of supplying fighters throughout the world in alignment with Moscow's foreign policy goals.
The arrests may have been the result of a clandestine operation by Ukrainian intelligence, Kots revealed. The men involved have backgrounds as security contractors.
The reporter says the recruitment was done under false pretenses and involved a Ukrainian tour operator.
According to Kots, the suspected frame-up started with
a man who claimed to be seeking guards for protecting oil industry sites in Syria. He used a phone number that appeared to be located in the Middle Eastern nation, but was actually untraceable. The recruiter introduced himself as Sergey, had intimate knowledge of the PMC industry, and was interested in as many as 90 fighters.
In May,
another man posing as a security official of Russian oil giant Rosneft joined the scheme and suggested boosting the number of recruits to 180. Next month, the fake Rosneft boss told the hires that 'Sergey' had been killed in action and that the company wanted to send them to Venezuela to work as guards there.
Comment: The order vaguely bans Americans from any dealings with the parent companies ByteDance and Tencent (which has many gamers worried, as the company is heavily invested in numerous gaming companies and platforms). TikTok is naturally "shocked" by the news, and has threatened legal action: China hypocritically calls it a "blatant hegemonic act" - with no mention of their longstanding bans on countless American apps - and urges the U.S. to stop "politicizing" relations: It may not be right, but it's certainly fair, given China's heavy-handed methods on their own soil. As with most governments, it's fair when we do it, unfair when anyone else does. In that regard, governments are the original SJW victim-mentality crybabies.