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Belarus suppresses attempt to arrange provocation during national assembly

According to an Interior Ministry official, several searches took place after the identification of a suspicious citizen in the border area

MINSK, December 16. /TASS/. Belarusian law enforcement officers have detained a man who, on the instructions of an extremist, planned to carry out a provocation during the All-Belarusian National Assembly (VNS), ONT TV channel reported.

"Fugitive oppositionist Andrey Pauk decided to establish a so-called farm of fictitious subscribers in Belarus by December 18, the beginning of the All-Belarusian National Assembly. At the same time, he used another Belarusian, Sergey K. The plans were to ‘mine’ schools and hospitals. However, the telephone terrorists did not succeed in completing their plans," it said.

According to an Interior Ministry official, several searches took place after the identification of a suspicious citizen in the border area.

"It was established that on instructions from Andrey Pauk, who is abroad and wanted for extremist crimes, the detainee had to purchase up to 30 SIM cards for installation in a SIM box," he said.

The official said that such equipment allows you to remotely make dozens of calls simultaneously from Belarusian numbers and is usually used for fraud. "In this case, it was planned to make mass calls to schools, hospitals, government agencies, power plants and critical information infrastructure facilities with deliberately false messages about danger and terrorist threats. All this was planned from abroad to destabilize the situation during the All-Belarusian National Assembly," he said.

With the measures taken, it was possible to stop the criminal intent at the preparation stage. An inspection is currently underway, and a legal evaluation will be given to the detainee's actions, the operative added.

On December 18-19, Minsk will host the second meeting of the VII National Assembly.

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