The U.S. and its allies in the region, the Baltic states, Georgia and Ukraine, are the usual targets of Russia’s state-owned media. But recently Kremlin-controlled channels seem to have turned on Moscow’s longtime regional friend Belarus, making many in Minsk very nervous.

Nominally one of Moscow’s closest allies, Belarus doesn’t regularly feature in Russian media. But since late 2016, a flurry of talk-shows and articles have addressed an alleged rise in Belarusian nationalism that, according to the coverage, if left unchecked by Moscow, could lead to a Maidan-style uprising in this NATO-border state.

Ultra-conservative, fringe sites sympathetic to the Kremlin account for much of this coverage, but more influential, government-run entities like the First Channel and Regnum news agency promote the claims, too.

The question is why.