The defeat of Russian President Vladimir Putin in his war against Ukraine is necessary for Belarus to become free of the pro-Kremlin regime in Minsk, Belarus’s exiled opposition leader has said. Speaking to TVP World on Wednesday, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said she thinks Putin’s defeat is a “necessary condition” as it would provide “momentum for Belarus.” If Russia were to win the war, Tsikhanouskaya said Moscow would make Belarus its “satellite” state, while an unclear resolution to the conflict would “keep the status quo in Belarus for decades.” “People will be in prisons… people will live in fear. So definitely the victory of Ukraine will define the situation in Belarus as well,” she added. Although Belarus has not sent its own troops to Ukraine, it supported the Kremlin’s war by acting as a springboard from which Russia launched its 2022 full-scale invasion. Minsk continues to provide diplomatic support to Moscow. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko – a key Putin ally who has been in power since 1994 – clamped down on political opposition in Belarus after mass protests broke out in 2020 over a presidential election result widely considered to have been rigged. Tsikhanouskaya was the leading candidate running against Lukashenko in the poll, which sparked era-defining demonstrations and repression. The opposition leader was forced to go into exile following her defeat. Belarus’s freedom a ‘matter of time’ In her comments to TVP World, Tsikhanouskaya said she is “absolutely sure” that Belarus is closer to freedom “than it was before,” because the “people of Belarus have changed.” The opposition leader said 2020 was “really historic” for Belarusians’ self-understanding as a nation, adding that it showed “that we can do something, that we can challenge this regime.” “We didn’t give up. So the freedom of Belarus is a matter of time. Hopefully it will… happen very soon.” Tsikhanouskaya said that the Belarusian opposition and its European allies must prepare for a post-Lukashenko era alongside attempts to “weaken the regime.” She said: “When there will be negotiations about Ukraine, don’t overlook Belarus… we have to solve [the] Belarusian and Ukrainian case together.” If Belarus’s fate is left “in the hands of Putin and Lukashenko, it will be a source of constant threat to the NATO alliance as well as to the European Union,” Tsikhanouskaya told TVP World.
