Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said on Monday her country is under a de facto “military occupation” by Russia and urged the European Union (EU) to continue the pressure on Alexander Lukashenko’s government.
“I must say that Belarus is indeed under military occupation,” the opposition leader told AFP after meeting with European foreign ministers in Brussels.
According to Tikhanovskaya, Lukashenko does not control the “presence of Russian troops” or the deployment of Russian military equipment on the territory of his country.
“He has to keep up with everything because he knows that without the support of the people, [presidente russo Vladimir] “Putin cannot survive politically in Belarus,” he said.
The announcement of a joint Belarusian-Russian deployment last month raised fears that the government in Minsk may prepare to send troops to Ukraine.
But Tikhanovskaya insisted that the Belarusian soldiers would refuse to go into battle, and “Lukashenko knows this.”
He added that so far the opposition “has not seen any signs” that Russian nuclear weapons have been installed on Belarusian soil.
Tikhanovskaya lives in exile after escaping the brutal crackdown against the protests that erupted in 2020 when Lukashenko claimed to have won the elections, the result of which was not recognized by the EU.
Therefore, he urged the EU not to “forget” the pressure in Belarus as its focus now is on Ukraine and to close the loopholes in the sanctions adopted by the EU against the Lukashenko government.
The situation in Belarus is getting worse. “The number of political prisoners is increasing, the arrests continue and people are sentenced to years in prison,” he said.
“We ask the world to be persistent and consistent, not to forgive or forget what the regime has done and continues to do,” he said.
source: Noticias
