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Opposition leader Sviatlana Cichanouskaya, who spent nine months in exile, saw Lukashenko’s hand in international law, forcing a commercial jet to land in Minsk and arresting Raman Pratasevich, a reporter despised by the regime who, like she sought refuge in Lithuania.
“Exactly a week ago, I took the same flight from Athens,” Cichanouskaya told reporters on Monday. – Now I could be in Raman’s place. From now on, no one can expect to stay safe when flying over Belarusian airspace. “
The former teacher became famous for challenging Lukashenko in presidential elections, which were widely condemned as forgeries.
The brutal crackdown on protests last year sparked international outrage, but it also tested the limits of what the outside world could take, especially given Russian Vladimir Putin, who was standing firmly in the corner of his ring.
While Cichanouskaya’s husband is still being held in a Belarusian prison, she is on the same “terrorist list” of the Belarusian secret service, still officially known as the KGB, on the basis of which Pratasevich was also arrested.
After moving to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania with a population of 590,000, S. Cichanouskaja tried not to stand out, without revealing the location of his house in public pictures or interviews. You never meet the press at your private residence and need extra security when you travel.
You really have reason to be afraid. On Tuesday, Belarusian authorities released a gruesome video of Pratasevic being filmed gray-faced and dead speaking from a prison.
He denied reports that circulated on social media that he was ill and admitted that he had caused unrest in his country. The circumstances of the video remain unclear, as does whether the statement was coercive.
All that is clear is that the arrest of R. Pratasevičius should have sent a message to others.
“This is a warning to Cichanouskaya,” Vladimir Jabarov, first deputy chairman of the International Affairs Committee of Russia’s upper house of parliament, said in a telephone interview, adding that the detained reporter was only “sitting abroad and criticizing Homeland”.
Lithuanian officials, citing the increased risk, called for more funds from the state budget to protect all Belarusian dissidents currently living in the country. They also asked opposition activists to refrain from posting personal information on social media. Poland, a country inhabited by many Belarusian activists, also warns them to be careful.
According to Vice Chancellor Pawel Jablonski, “we do not know what the regime is capable of.”
Sciapan Pucila, still in charge of the Nexta news agency, which he co-founded with Warsaw’s Pratasevic, told reporters that after the incident “he received more than a thousand threats to be another one that the regime would return to Belarus.”
Although concerned for his life, he promised to continue doing what “we did with Raman.”
“It is vital because we want to live in a free and independent country,” he said.
However, the fighters are already overwhelmed by bad feelings and despair.
In Warsaw, Ales Zarembiuk, director of the Belarusian House Foundation in Poland, said Belarusians were disappointed that almost 10 months after the crackdown began, there was no help from the European Union.
“After what happened yesterday, it is no longer our problem,” he said Monday. “We are awake and now we need support and a strategic international coalition, otherwise we will not win.”
The EU summit in Brussels discusses sanctions against Belarus and a flight blockade. However, there are concerns that none of these actions could be a motive for Mr. Lukashenko.
In Warsaw, Pavel Latuška recalls the “disappearances” of Lukashenko’s political opponents: further proof that the president is not trying to get out of control.
Mr. Latuška, together with Mr. Cichanouskaya, who led the opposition, also previously worked as Belarusian ambassador to Poland and France. He withdrew to the opposition after 2020. presidential elections.
He had to leave the country to avoid immediate arrest.
“This regime is ready to take any action against people it perceives as a threat,” he said in an email.
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