WASHINGTON - Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya urged her country to break ties with neighbor Russia as she spoke out on Wednesday March 22 against President Alexander Lukashenko's support for the war in Ukraine.
Lukashenko, who has been in power in Minsk for nearly 30 years, is a key ally of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and allowed the Kremlin to launch its intervention in Ukraine from his country's territory.
It is time to push back against Russia's interference into the internal affairs of Belarus. Tikhanovskaya said at a news conference at the US Capitol in Washington that it supports the illegitimate regime and conducts colonialist actions against our serenity and national identity.
The aggressor military freely uses our territory, airspace and infrastructure to attack and threaten Ukraine. Our country must stop participation in the war and the Russian military should be fully withdrawn from Belarus. She called for Belarusians to break off their close relationships with the aggressor and promised that the country would eventually leave the 1999 union state treaty, which envisions deeper integration between Minsk and Moscow, and end their military alliance.
Earlier in the month, Belarus sentenced Tikhanovskaya in absentia to 15 years for leading protests against the former Soviet leader, who claimed he had won a sixth term in the disputed 2020 elections.
Since being forced to flee to neighboring EU member Lithuania, Tikhanovskaya has urged greater Western pressure on Lukashenko whose government was sanctioned by the West in the wake of the election.
More than 1,500 Belarusians are being held on politically motivated charges, according to the United Nations, while more than 2,000 have been convicted under so-called extremism charges, including insulting the president. Putin wants everything and must bear the full responsibility for the war against Ukraine, against the will of the people, said Tikhanovskaya.
The event was arranged by US senators Roger Wicker and Jeanne Shaheen, a Mississippi Republican and Democrat from New Hampshire who founded the Free Belarus Caucus in 2021.
Lukashenko allowed Belarus's sovereign territory to be used to further Putin's expansionist agenda and allow Russia's unprovoked attacks on Ukraine, Shaheen said.
It is important to remember that there are brave Belarusians, independent journalists, human rights defenders and other members of the civil society who are bravely fighting in exile to expose Lukashenko's criminal complicity in Russia's war in Ukraine.