Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya urged world leaders Tuesday not to neglect her isolated homeland, saying it should not become Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “consolation prize” as part of his war against Ukraine.
“I ask our partners and allies to keep Belarus on the agenda,” Tikhanovkskaya told REPORTER in an interview on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
“It’s crucial that Belarus is… discussed, that in our region Belarus is not left to Putin as a consolation prize.”
Tikhanovskaya, who claimed victory against longtime Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election, has lived in exile since authorities unleashed a violent crackdown on protesters disputing the results of the vote.
Lukashenko has been instrumental to Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, allowing Moscow to stage attacks from Belarusian territory, and more recently hosting Russian nuclear weapons and harboring members of the notorious Wagner mercenary group.
“It’s also a threat to regional security, a threat to our neighbors through deployment of nuclear weapons, through deployment of Russian military forces in our country,” Tikhanovskaya said.
“Without a democratic and free Belarus there will be no peace and security in the whole region. We are important.”
She called for the International Court of Justice, the UN’s top legal body, to launch an investigation into human rights abuses by Lukashenko and his allies.
Tikhanovskaya said that international humanitarian organizations should play a more active role in Belarus, which, she said, is seeing an epidemic of politically motivated detentions.
“In Belarus, there are many political prisoners who are in a very poor physical state — with cancer, with heart attacks, with diabetes,” who are denied treatment.
“The Red Cross… they have to demand every day to get access to all prisoners. So we need more effective work,” Tikhanovskaya said.