Opposition leader says Belarus not consolation prize for Putin

February 8, BPN. The situation in Belarus keeps deteriorating every day, Belarusian opposition leader Sviatłana Cichanoŭskaja told participants at a webinar on Belarus held at the London School of Economics.

“Any attempt to resist leads to mass detention,” she said. “On average, every day the regime detains 17 new people for political reasons. Last year alone, 5,000 politically motivated criminal cases were opened.”

Authorities keep sentencing their opponents to lengthy prison terms and hold them in inhumane conditions, but resistance continues underground, the politician noted.

Belarusian struggle for freedom hinges on Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion, she said. “Free Belarusians and Ukrainians today oppose the same evil – the tyranny and imperialism of Russia,” she added.

Vladimir Putin does not see Belarus or Ukraine as independent countries and wants to have them both subdued by Russia, while Alaksandr Łukašenka sees Putin as the only guarantee to stay in power, Cichanoŭskaja said.

“But the dictators have the problem which is that the Belarusian people don’t want Belarus to be part of Russia,” she said while speaking about a “creeping occupation” of Belarus, a pro-Russia information campaign, its attempts to weaken a sense of national identity among Belarusians, attacks on the Belarusian language, media and civil society.

Ukrainian and Belarusian issues should be solved together and Putin should not be allowed “to have Belarus as a consolation prize,” she stressed.

Belarus may face two scenarios in the future: staying in international isolation and becoming a source of instability in the region or turning into a “sustainable democracy” and becoming a part of “the European family, where human rights are respected and people live freely.”

“In 2020, when our revolution started, it was not geopolitical at all,” Cichanoŭskaja said. “But after 2022, it became clear what Belarusians really want and where they belong.”