An exiled opposition leader from Belarus said Tuesday that her country’s foot soldiers would lay down their arms if they were sent to Ukraine under pressure from Russia.
Russia used Belarus as a stage for troops and weapons when it invaded Ukraine 8 months ago. Concerns remain that Belarus’ authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, may agree to send his own troops to southern Ukraine.
Opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, exiled in Lithuania since 2020, said Belarus’ leadership is hostage to hardline allies in Moscow who provide political and economic support. It opposes Belarus’ direct involvement in the war.
“If it happens that under pressure, under threat, Belarusian troops are deployed, we urge our infantrymen to lay down their arms, enlist in the guerrillas, change sides, enlist in the Ukrainian army,” Tsikhnouskaya said on a stopover in Estonia. .
Moscow has pumped billions of dollars to boost Belarus’ state-controlled Soviet-style economy with energy and reasonable loans. and the West denounced as rigged.
Tsikhanouskaya opposed Lukashenko in that election, and many thought she had won. She was forced to leave Belarus under pressure from the government.
“Lukashenko, of course, depends a lot on the Kremlin, because it was the Kremlin that helped him retain power in 2020, and right now he is paying his debt to the Kremlin,” Tsikhanouskaya told The Associated Press.
Lukashenko has publicly supported Russia’s attack on Ukraine, prompting foreign complaints and sanctions against Minsk. However, he rejected the hypothesis that Belarus would send its own infantrymen to fight alongside Russia.
However, earlier this month, the Belarusian government announced the creation of a joint “regional grouping of troops” with Russia and some 9,000 Russian troops reportedly stationed in Belarus.
Tsikhanouskaya said there was no evidence lately of a planned Belarusian deployment in Ukraine. The 1,000-kilometer Belarusian-Ukrainian border has been mined, he stressed, and “Ukrainian forces are also preparing for an imaginable offensive” from Belarus.
He also opposed Belarus’ stockpiling of Russian nuclear weapons, Lukashenko also mentioned.
“One imaginable trend is this: if Putin’s irrational thinking suddenly leads to doing something horrible with a horrible result, it will be done from the territory of Belarus (so that Putin can) prove that ‘I am not alone like this, I have an ally,'” Tiskhanouskaya predicted.
Meanwhile, many Belarusians volunteered to fight in Ukraine starting with the Kastus Kalinousky regiment. A separate guerrilla movement in Belarus disrupted the movement of the Russian military apparatus through the tracks.
“A guy who in 2020 took off his shoes to stand on a bench (during a protest) is now fighting in the Kalinousky regiment,” Tsikhahouskaya said. “We see that Belarusians are so patient. . . But I remain committed to nonviolence change. “
Tsikhanouskaya shaped a closet in exile, and two senior security officials joined him. She invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to shape “an alliance with democratic Belarus,” but has yet to get a response.
However, Tsikhanouskaya said, Belarus will have to be “considered as occupied territory. “
“This is not the time to compare our pain,” Tsikhanouskaya said. “Now we are in the same boat. Of course, the scenario is absolutely different; there is Array. . . a terrible war there while in Belarus there are political and military repressions. “. But we depend on the fact that Russia does not Ukraine or Belarus to be independent sovereign states.
Lukashenko has harshly cracked down on mass anti-government protests sparked by his re-election in 2020. Police arrested another 35,000 people and brutally exceeded the scores. Bars.
Among them are this year’s Nobel Peace Prize co-winner Ales Bialiatski, founder of Belarus’ largest human rights group, and opposition figure Siarhei Tsikhanouski, Tsikhanouskaya’s husband.
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Follow AP’s of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews. com/hub/russia-ukraine
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