KGB chief accuses exiled opposition of plotting terrorist attacks in Belarus

June 1, BPN. Tensions around Belarus are escalating and security services are ready to respond, Ivan Tertel, head of Belarus’ Committee for State Security (KGB) has said.

“We are acting decisively,” he told state-run media journalists following Alaksandr Łukašenka’s meeting with the spy agency chiefs of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

“The KGB works like Smersh,” he said in a reference to the umbrella organization for military counterintelligence in the former USSR during World War II. “We will not hesitate. . . nothing will stop us.”

The KGB has information about terrorist attacks planned in Belarus by combat groups formed in Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Czechia and other countries, Tertel claimed. Exiled opposition activists are seeking some $250 million in the West “for their subversive activities against Belarus,” he added.

Tertel said that the checks of travelers’ smartphones by security officers at border checkpoints are intended to ensure “the timely detection and localization of persons with terrorist and extremist intentions.” These measures help filter those who enter the country, he noted.

The KGB chief urged the exiled opposition to solve problems peacefully.