UNITED NATIONS (AP) – The fates of Belarus and Ukraine are “intertwined” and both countries must fight together to ensure their existence because Russia does not see them as independent sovereign states, Belarus’ opposition leader said on Friday.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled to Lithuania after Russian ally Alexander Lukashenko claimed victory in the disputed August 2020 election that many believed she had won, said in an interview with The Associated Press that “it was without free Ukraine will not give free Belarus”.
As long as Russian President Vladimir Putin is in power, she said on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, there will be constant security threats for Ukraine – and for the western border of Belarus.
Tsikhanouskaya said neither country wanted to be part of another Russian empire.
“So Belarus is part of this problem and this problem, this crisis, has to be solved in this context,” he said.
Lukashenko must back Russia after his February 24 invasion of Ukraine, she said, because Putin backed him after mass protests over the official 2020 election results that earned the Belarusian president a sixth term with 80 percent of the vote.
Since its invasion, Russia has used Belarus as a staging area to send troops to Ukraine, and Moscow and Minsk have maintained close military ties.
Lukashenko, who has been president since 1994, said last month that Belarusian warplanes were modified to carry nuclear weapons in line with the deal with Russia. And he warned the United States and its allies against launching a “provocation” against Belarus, saying “targets have been selected” for retaliation.
Tsikhanouskaya said the war in Ukraine came “extremely unexpectedly” and that some Belarusians were particularly opposed to the war “against the Ukrainians, our brothers and sisters.”
Tsikhanouskaya said that since fleeing to Lithuania more than two years ago, the opposition has achieved “many successes” – most notably that “people don’t give up” despite “terror and repression” by the Lukashenko regime and his imprisonment of more than a thousand political prisoners, including her own husband.
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The opposition “managed to build a coalition of democratic countries fighting alongside us, fighting against this regime and creating multiple pressure points,” she said.
There are now six packages of sanctions pushed forward by the opposition against the Lukashenko regime. The sanctions have stressed and pressured the president into focusing solely on staying in power rather than what’s best for the country, she said.
Tsikhanouskaya said Lukashenko and his supporters are adept at evading sanctions by using third parties. One way to prevent this is for the European Union to follow the United States and impose secondary sanctions, she said.
She called on the international community both to keep up the pressure on Lukashenko – by proposing new sanctions against Belarusian exports of timber, potash and steel – and to help Belarusian civil society, including human rights defenders, “culture people, politicians who fight with this regime to have the energy to keep going.”
Thousands of people have been detained since February 24 for opposing the war in Ukraine, she said, praising saboteurs who disrupted rail traffic from Russia to Ukraine through Belarus and sent information about supplies to the Ukrainian military an act that risked death as a punishment.
“Of course, people are scared,” said Tsikhanouskaya. “Actually, we live in Belarus like in a gulag, but people have this energy to keep going.”
The opposition organized something like a government-in-exile, said Tsikhanouskaya. Thanks to technology, she said, she can communicate with people in Belarus, and now they remain “in safe mode,” ready for a “new wave of revolution when the moment comes.”
She predicted that there will be a “window of opportunity” for the Belarusian people, probably related to the victory in Ukraine, but no one knows how long it will last.
“Our job is not to be exhausted when the time comes to have this energy, to continue this mobilization plan, this transition plan,” Tsikhanouskaya said, “and we hope it won’t be too long because there is time for.” Ukrainians very important Time is very important for our political prisoners, and time is actually important for the world,” she said.
Tsikhanouskaya stepped in after her husband Siarhei Tsikhanouski was arrested two days after declaring his candidacy in the 2020 presidential election. The popular video blogger and activist, known for his anti-Lukashenko slogan “Stop the cockroach,” was sentenced to 18 years in prison last December on charges widely believed to be politically motivated.
She said her husband has been in a tiny punishment cell for more than a month, adding that conditions for political prisoners are far worse than for common criminals. She fears for him and thousands of other political prisoners as winter approaches, as the temperature inside their cells is no warmer than outside.
Tsikhanouskaya said she came to the annual gathering of world leaders to give a voice to the people “who are fighting the dictatorship” and to urge Lukashenko to be held accountable for his crimes.
She said she really understands the importance of focusing on Ukraine, “but we must not forget the role of Belarus in this regional crisis, and we must not forget the people of Belarus who are also struggling and fighting grief because of the war and because of the dictator who rules our country.”
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Edith M. Lederer is chief UN correspondent for The Associated Press and has been reporting on international affairs for more than half a century. For more AP coverage of the UN General Assembly, see https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly.