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Svetlana Tikhanovskaya: Our partisan movement will sabotage.
Orders will be disobeyed«
Photo: Christoph Soeder / dpa
Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya anticipates strong opposition to her country's possible full participation in Russia's war against Ukraine.
“Our partisan movement will sabotage.
Orders will be disobeyed.
Or the Belarusian soldiers will surrender there immediately," said the politician of the dpa news agency.
Two years after the presidential elections in Belarus, which were considered fraudulent, she said that Russia, with its support for ruler Alexander Lukashenko, was probably already eyeing the ex-Soviet republic as a "bridgehead" for an attack.
In the election on August 9, 2020, the authoritarian ruler Lukashenko was again proclaimed the winner of the election, triggering unprecedented protests in Belarus.
Many see Tichanovskaya as the winner of the election.
Due to massive state repression, there are now almost no more major demonstrations in the ex-Soviet republic.
“Lukashenko is a collaborator.
He dragged Belarus into this war and now he's doing whatever is asked of him to keep Russia in power,” Tikhanovskaya said ahead of the second anniversary of the disputed presidential election.
Today it is clear that the Kremlin probably already had war plans back then and therefore left Lukashenko in power.
In her exile in Vilnius, the politician criticized that he was leaving Belarusian territory so that Russian forces could attack Ukraine from there.
»But at the beginning of the war there were also acts of sabotage against the important supply routes.
Rail partisans slowed military transport;
and information was given to the Ukrainian armed forces about the bases from which Russian missiles were fired.« A battalion of Belarusian fighters was also formed in Ukraine to counter the Russian invasion.
Despite the high pressure of expectations from the Kremlin, Lukashenko has still not managed to get the country on course for war, said Tichanovskaya.
»86 percent of the people in Belarus are against the war.
We don't have any anti-Ukrainian mood.« At the same time, she complained about »massive repression«.
"Anyone who openly speaks out against the war is treated like an opponent of the regime." The situation of the political prisoners in the country, including her husband Sergei Tichanowski, is devastating, said the mother of two.
muk/dpa