The Hague, April 22 – Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya on Friday called for tougher sanctions on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who she says should bear full responsibility for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Russia deployed tens of thousands of troops from both Russian and Belarusian territory to Ukraine on February 24 in a so-called “special military operation” aimed at demilitarizing and “denazifying” its neighbor.
“Lukashenko became an accomplice of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin in this war,” Tsikhanouskaya told Reuters in The Hague, where she met with Dutch politicians and received an award for her work this week.
“He has to take all the responsibility,” she said.
Lukashenko has said his country is wrongly labeled as an accomplice in the struggle. He has said that Belarusian armed forces are not and will not be taking part in the conflict. Continue reading
The European Union, the United States and others have included Belarus in sweeping sanctions against Russia. Continue reading
Tsikhanouskaya said the measures should go further.
“The sanctions should have the same strength (like those against Russia) but a different structure because we don’t have that many oligarchs. All economic power is in the hands of the state sector,” she said.
Tsikhanouskaya, who fled her home country in 2020 after a presidential election her supporters say was rigged, warned democratic countries not to be fooled by the president’s attempts to portray himself as a bystander in the conflict.
“The fact that Belarusian troops did not invade Ukraine is not the credit of Lukashenko, but the credit of the soldiers themselves, who do not understand why we should fight our brothers and sisters,” she said.
Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Edited by Andrew Heavens and Raissa Kasolowsky