Opposition leader sounds alarm at NATO PA about Russia’s nuclear plans in Belarus

May 22, BPN. Belarusian opposition leader Śviatłana Cichanoŭskaja discussed Alaksandr Łukašenka’s complicity in Russia’s war on Ukraine with NATO Parliamentary Assembly President Joëlle Garriaud-Maylam. 

“I urged her to raise the alarm about the potential deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus before it’s too late,” she tweeted.

Their meeting took place in Luxembourg where Cichanoŭskaja arrived to address the Parliamentary Assembly’s spring session. 

The politician also discussed support for Belarusian volunteers fighting Russia in Ukraine and Łukašenka’s role in the deportations of Ukrainian children, she wrote on Twitter. 

Recognizing Łukašenka as a co-aggressor, as advocated by Cichanoŭskaja, would be “a very important step to hold the regime accountable,” her aide Franak Viačorka told BPN. 

The parties also discussed scheduling a hearing on Belarus at the NATO PA autumn session and setting up a contact group on Belarus, similar to one that already exists at the Council of Europe. 

Legislators from NATO countries supported the creation of an international tribunal to hold the Russian leadership and military as well as their Belarusian accomplices accountable for war crimes, the Parliamentary Assembly’s press office said.