Russian oligarch Mazepin had and still has great interests in Belarus – Pavlo Latushko ,
Pavlo Latushko .
KYIV. UkraineGate . 28 . July . 2022 | Political News .
Russian oligarch Dmytro Mazepin, who is connected to Ukraine , had and continues to have great interests in Belarus.
He emphasized that Mazepin had been associated with Belarus for a long time and even tried to take control of the potash business in the country.
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“Mazepin had and continues to have great interests in Belarus. He was engaged in the potash business and tried to take control of the potash business in Belarus by merging it with Uralhim (a Russian concern that previously belonged to Mazepin – ed.). And all so that this consortium could dictate and determine in many respects the world prices for potash fertilizers,” Latushko said.
He recalled that in 2020, with the help of Mazepin, the Kremlin tried to take control of Lukashenka.
“The surname Mazepin sounded very loudly in Belarusian domestic politics in 2020, and even at that time, as far as I know, his mother lived in Belarus. Open sources wrote about this and he himself admitted it in his interviews.
It was then (during the protests against Lukashenka in 2020 – ed.) that Mazepin made an attempt to publicly support democratic changes in Belarus. And it was read as an attempt by the Kremlin to remove Lukashenka from office.
But it is necessary to realistically assess the situation and understand that he (Mazepin – ed.) was just one of the cogs, one of the tools of the Kremlin in order to create a situation of discomfort for Lukashenko in order to demonstrate the power of the Kremlin,” the opposition politician explained.
At one time, the businessman planned active activities in the direction of the “merger” of “Belaruskali” with “Uralkali”, connecting to this his connections in the Sberbank of Russia (in the person of Herman Gref – the head of the Sberbank of the Russian Federation), hoping for a favorable relationship with Lukashenka, who should help merger of these two companies (headquarters and funding center in Moscow).
However, everything did not go according to plan: Lukashenko did not accept these conditions and the negotiation process reached a dead end. After the presidential elections in Belarus, which caused a surge of popular indignation and acts of force, Mazepin decided to play on this and called on the opposition to create the same national rescue committee.
According to foreign experts, Mazepin, who was angry with Lukashenka because of his refusal to help in the merger of a Belarusian and Russian company, decided to help Putin in the “occupation of Belarus” and planned to create an alleged “opposition” committee, in parallel, as Protasevich claimed, by financing Nexta.
Mazepin’s main goal, despite his statement of non-involvement in the financing of the Belarusian opposition, was to help Putin “hook” Belarus in order to win the support of this country in the war with Ukraine, an attack on which Putin had been preparing for a long time.
For Mazepin, the “occupation” of Belarus by Russia was probably to his advantage, because because of the war in Ukraine, as it turned out, he planned to get the “Odesa Port Plant” for himself, promising the President of Russia, Putin, the quick surrender of Odessa .
Source: Ukrgate
