Belarus’s beleaguered opposition is flirting with violence

The cyber Partisans, a group of anonymous dissidents, have hacked their way to the very top of Belarus’s authoritarian regime. They claim that last year when Alexander Lukashenko, the country’s dictatorial president, said he was more scared of cyber weapons than nuclear weapons, he was thinking of them. “What opposition group can say that they have the passport information of all its country’s citizens :)” typed a hacker identified only as Cyber #3. They have reason to grin. The Cyber Partisans are the cutting edge of a militant wing of Belarus’s opposition that is gearing up for action.

In a Warsaw safehouse, one dissident preparing to return to Belarus fidgeted nervously with a lighter. “We are waiting, but we don’t know what we are waiting for,” he complained. “Everyone is frustrated. Everyone is scared.” Crackdowns have caused many to abandon the dangerous game of dissident politics entirely. That despair has, however, led some to consider more radical methods.