Cuddly Swedish bear-troopers storm Minsk: Belarus generals s**t-canned

Perhaps the last sight any general heading a nation’s air defense command would want to see is a foreign aircraft entering its airspace without permission. Well … maybe a foreign airplane invading a nation’s airspace and dropping almost thousand Teddy bears might top that last sight come to think of it.

Nonetheless, two generals — one heading air defense and the other border security — in the former Soviet republic of Belarus may not have actually seen the invasion but sure felt its aftermath. They were fired by the man called “Europe’s last dictator,” Alexander Lukashenko. These strange events happened in the wake of what was an acknowledged PR stunt for human rights by the very outrageous and inventive advertising firm Studio Total of Stockholm and Malmo in Sweden.

The nation of Belarus — the 86th largest country in area in the world, according to the CIA’s The World Factbook — gained independence from the USSR in 1991 after seven decades. It still has close ties with Russia, the countries signed a pact for forming a two-nation union in 1999 although nothing serious has taken place between the countries. Perhaps Russia looks upon Belarus as its crazy little brother. Who knows. Lukashenko has, says the CIA, ” … steadily consolidated his power through authoritarian means. Government restrictions on freedom of speech and the press, peaceful assembly, and religion remain in place.” That’s kind of like saying an NFL quarterback is “subject to possible stress and some injury during his career.”

Numerous human rights abuse cases have surfaced in Belarus. The abuse includes arrests for those attempting to have their voice heard in what is supposed to be an emerging “republic.” Nothing but a dictatorship exists though in the nation of Belarus with its requisite imprisonment for attempting to speak and assemble freely with some torture thrown in for your trouble.

Pictures of the invasion were taken and posted by Belarusian photojournalist Anton Suryapin on his site Belarusian News Photos. His trouble landed him in jail, facing seven years in prison.

The funny, irreverent, and, yes, cynical, writers of Studio Total found a small airplane and breached Belarus airspace, dumping the Teddy bears carrying human rights slogans over the two cities. All of this took place in an area that supposedly has very vigilant military airspace defense.The “Teddy Bear Airdrop, Minsk 2012” is chronicled on Studio Total’s site in a very funny, but also disturbing story of how the bad old days of the USSR aren’t gone. One also wonders if they are here to stay and even expand.