Dissident leader wants Europe to consider Belarus in broader Ukraine peace deal

BERLIN — Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya called on the EU not to overlook Belarus in negotiations on Ukraine and Europe’s future security.

Minsk “will continue to be a threat to our neighbors if [President Alexander] Lukashenko survives politically,” Tsikhanouskaya warned about the Russia-friendly state that neighbors Ukraine and was used as a launchpad for Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin’s forces to attack Kyiv in 2022.

Speaking to Anne McElvoy for the Brussels Playbook Week Ender podcast, Tsikhanouskaya said it’s “important for us politically that the European Union will not overlook Belarus in peace negotiations on Ukraine …[and] in the discussion about the future security architecture of our region.” She added that Lukashenko, who has been in power in Minsk since 1994, cannot be relied upon to provide a secure border with Ukraine.

Belarus has been a steadfast ally of the Kremlin, which also came to Lukashenko’s aid in August 2020 after a popular uprising threatened to unseat the longtime authoritarian ruler after he rigged an election against Tsikhanouskaya, who then fled the country. Now living in exile in Lithuania, she was handed a 15-year jail term after being convicted in absentia for treason.

The dissident leader criticized what she viewed as a lackadaisical approach to Belarus from Europe’s leaders, particularly before the 2020 election. “For us it looked like Europe just closed eyes, like ‘Lukashenko, you are son of the bitch, but you’re our son of the bitch. We know how to work with you, so okay. We are okay with this.’”

Asked if she blamed former German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the chain of events that led to the invasion of Ukraine, particularly the German leader’s role in the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements, which failed to deter Putin from further aggression, Tsikhanouskaya demurred.

“It’s not because of Angela Merkel that the war started against Ukraine,” she said. “It was because Russia was emboldened. I cannot judge politicians who have to make difficult decisions in difficult times. Maybe at that moment she was supported by German people … the policy of appeasement of Putin not only came from the side of Germany but from other [European] countries [and] brought us to the situation we are in.”

However, she accused Europe more broadly of turning a blind eye to the repression of the regime in Minsk. “For 30 years, Lukashenko was playing seesaw between Russia and Europe,” she said, seeking cheap oil and gas from Russia in winter and courting European investment for the rest of the year.

Tsikhanouskaya was attending the Freedom and Security Women Summit in Germany’s parliament during Berlin Freedom Week, which marks the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and supports pro-democracy dissident movements.

You can hear the full interview here.