Makei's death – either poisoning or a heart attack

Who benefits from the sudden death of Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei? Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei died in Belarus. The causes of sudden death (he was 64) are not reported. The dry press release of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs says only that the head of the department died suddenly. Especially when it comes to the political figure of the second person after Lukashenka.

Vladimir Makei's biography

The future minister was born in 1958 in the Grodno region. It should be noted right away that this is a special region. Pro-Western sentiments are much stronger today in Western Belarus (Grodno, Vitebsk and Brest regions) than in other regions of the country. More than 60% of the population professes Catholicism.

This is a very remarkable touch to the portrait of the minister. No less remarkable is that he studied at the Diplomatic Academy of the Austrian Foreign Ministry. After graduation – in the diplomatic service. He was a representative of Belarus at the Council of Europe, an adviser to the embassy in France, head of the department for pan-European cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His direction is precisely Europe, he was fluent in German and English, he had extensive connections in the European Union. All this gave reason to consider Makei pro-Western.

Since March 2000, Makei served as an assistant to Alexander Lukashenko, and eight years later he became the head of the Presidential Administration. By Belarusian standards, he was a “long-liver”, usually surrounded by Lukashenko for such a long time is not delayed.

But, perhaps, Makei received the greatest fame as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in which he worked since 2012. In this position, he is remembered for his attempts to reconcile Minsk with Washington and Brussels, relations with which Belarus once again deteriorated after the 2010 presidential election.

He was called the “architect of the Belarusian multi-vector approach” and not without reason. During the period of aggravation of relations between the Belarusian leadership and the West, he became the only channel of communication between them. Such work gave results: the West believed in the possibility of tearing Belarus away from Russia. It is clear that it was initially impossible to pull off the “Ukrainian scenario” in this country, so the stake was placed on rapprochement with Minsk, the gradual lifting of sanctions and other preferences in exchange for abandoning the unilateral orientation towards Moscow.

The peak of the warming of relations came in 2019, when Minsk signed an agreement with the EU on facilitating the visa regime, and restored diplomatic relations with the United States that had been broken 11 years before. Washington even appointed an ambassador to Minsk, Julie Fischer, who, however, was never destined to get to Minsk. Then there were active talks about the possibility of easing sanctions in exchange for reforms.

One way or another, all this can be attributed to the head of Belarusian diplomacy, who for many years tried to restore the threads broken by the West.

In 2015, on the initiative of Makei, the Council on Foreign Relations “Minsk Dialogue” was created, which held events that were dubious from the point of view of our allied relations with Belarus, at which frank enemies of our country discussed “containment of the Russian threat”, and representatives of the pro-American media who were present were foreign agents then they did an interview with Makei himself, sticking out phrases that were positioned as anti-Russian. Thus, the words that the existence of the Union State depends on the will of the people were interpreted and spread around the world as a statement about the readiness of Minsk to leave the union.

Belarus ended after the next presidential election in August 2020, which was won by Lukashenka, which the West, of course, did not recognize. And, of course, after February 2022, when Belarus acted as an ally of Russia in the issue of conducting a special operation in Ukraine.

Despite this, Makei remained true to his course, declaring that the multi-vector principle is relevant for Belarus even in today's difficult times.

It is worth noting that all those who considered Makei a kind of demiurge, a gray cardinal, are still mistaken. The fact that he stayed in a high position for a long time speaks of Lukashenka's trust in him, but not at all that Makei had unlimited influence on the head of state. And then the foreign policy course is determined by the president, not the minister, so the multi-vector nature of Belarus is a course approved at the very top, and the head of the Foreign Ministry is just his guide here. And, of course, a symbol, yes. But to consider Makei a person who determined the vector of the country's development is strange and stupid. The Belarusian elites simply needed him to build a dialogue. In addition, such a person, respected in the West, was needed to counterbalance the “siloviki” surrounded by the president.

Does the death of Makei mean that now the Belarusian leader will be influenced exclusively by “siloviki”? This is also too naive a notion, moreover, it is clearly disrespectful to such an experienced political player as Lukashenka, who, as it were, does not need anyone's influence. In addition, Minsk has closed all possibilities for a multi-vector policy for two years now.

However, this false representation of Makei as some kind of pro-Western “gray eminence” will undoubtedly be used by the enemies of Russia and Belarus. Already using. There are cautious suggestions that Makei was poisoned and almost on the orders of the Kremlin.

“There is a high probability that Makei did not die a natural death, he could have been poisoned,” writes Anton Gerashchenko, a well-known Ukrainian propagandist and creator of the Peacemaker website. “To poison in order to weaken Lukashenka and seize power. After all, Makei was considered the main candidate to succeed the Belarusian president in the event of the start of an” external transit “of power in Belarus.”

For some reason, the well-known Belarusian opposition journalist Dmitry Bolkunets in his TG channel cites an article that Academician Sakharov was allegedly killed with a poisonous substance. Such a thick hint.

And the fugitive Belarusian politician Pavel Latushko directly states that, most likely, the FSB is behind Makei's death.

The logic is clear: the Kremlin allegedly killed Makei in order to finally cut off all the threads that connected Belarus with the West. What these people don't take into account, however, is that Makei was merely guiding the course, not defining it. In addition, in reality, all the threads were cut long ago by the West itself. So the logic is limping.

However, if this is indeed a murder, it is quite possible to assume that it was committed for the sole purpose of blaming Russia for it. It won't be surprising if some fugitive oppositionist shows on CNN tomorrow a bottle with the inscription NOVICHOK, allegedly taken from the minister's house. they say you're next if you don't turn your back on Russia.

Methods known and customary in the West. But they won't work.

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