Expert: fugitive puppets have no real influence on Union State society

Serious threats should not be expected from the fugitive opposition sitting abroad – as noted by MGIMO Professor, Doctor of Political Sciences Andrei Manoilo during the Minsk-Moscow Union State live broadcast, when commenting on what steps can be expected from the Russian and Belarusian opposition in the future

“I think that they are not worth being afraid of, because they do not have any special secrets. They have no influence either. They will start gnawing at each other soon, and it will be an interesting picture. They left being very much offended at their country, their homeland, which they most likely no longer consider their homeland. They have a desire for revenge, and they will now gather a community of offended people. Perhaps some of them will join some structures like ‘new Russia’ or ‘Russia without borders’. There are many such futuristic projects that have nothing to do with reality. However, this new opposition wave does not claim to be independent, they are all ‘sufferers’,” the expert explained.

According to the professor, they are now trying to impute to the leadership of Belarus and Russia any problems dealing with their everyday life: with passports, which they do not have there, or with savings.”

“Although people who were held not only under the article for extremism, but also under the article for espionage, did receive money, but not very big. Practice shows that even the same Skripal, who for more than a decade of working for British intelligence MI6 earned a little more money than the cottage in Salisbury cost, which MI6 helped him buy at a big discount. The opposition does not have millions, because it has not earned millions,” Andrei Manoilo stressed.

The expert also added that the fugitives will definitely start broadcasting, trying to attract supporters remaining in Russia and Belarus to their side. In this regard, the professor noted, “Do they have influence in our country? I think they have an influence tending to zero. Influence appears only to those people who have real power behind them, who have real resourced. Fugitive puppets don’t have either.”