Thread by @panyiszabolcs

SCOOP #RussiaBelarusLeak: We obtained a secret internal Kremlin document, ‘Strategic goals of the Russian Federation in the Belarusian direction’.

It’s a roadmap of how Russia will absorb Belarus by 2030.

With @agielewska for @VSquare_Project.🧵THREAD
vsquare.org/secret-kremlin…

2/ The more than dozen-page document was presented in the fall of 2021 to Dimitry Kozak, deputy head of Putin’s administration.

It was created by the Directorate for Cross-Border Cooperation, headed by Alexei Filatov, with inputs from all intelligence agencies (GRU, SVR & FSB).

3/ The document - according to a Western intelligence officer with knowledge of the Kremlin’s inner workings - circulated through various Putin administration units. The ‘integration planning’ was led by Vadim Smirnov, who had been outed in 2013 as a 🇷🇺 spy infiltrating Lithuania

4/ The plan envisions ”ensuring the predominant influence of Russia in the socio-political, trade-economic, scientific-educational and cultural-information spheres of Belarus.”

Russian goals are divided into short-term (by 2022), medium-term (by 2025) and long-term (by 2030).

5/ The document is a plan to take total control of Belarus over the course of this decade. It describes the Kremlin's political, economic, and military strategy. Out of the Visegrád countries, Poland is mentioned five times in the document. Mostly in the ‘threats’ section.

6/ If Russia absorbs Belarus, an extra 1250km of NATO-Russia border would emerge with serious military and security consequences to Poland and the CEE region.

This would mean permanent Russian forces & missile systems 200km from Warsaw, plus the Suwalki Corridor under pressure.

7/ We did the #BelarusRussiaLeak story w/
@holger_r @DelfiEE, @dossier_center, @agielewska
@VSquare_Project @FRONTSTORY_PL, @michaeldweiss @YahooNews, @CarlssonMattias @expressen, @AnnaMyroniuk @KyivIndependent, @BelarusFiles, @schmitt_jrg @SZ @SZ_Investigativ, @WDRinvestigativ