VILNIUS -- Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya says she aims to voice her country’s position on specific issues such as the transfer of Russian tactical nuclear weapons to Belarusian territory while attending the NATO summit in Vilnius.
Tsikhanouskaya, in an interview with RFE/RL on July 11, said that she recognizes that Ukraine is “in focus” at the summit and agrees that it should be, but said Belarus also deserves to be high on the agenda.
“For almost a year, there has been no new pressure against the regime. And this is viewed as a weakness of democracy -- [authoritarian leader Alyaksandr] Lukashenka and his cronies do crime after crime, and there is no punishment for that,” Tsikhanouskaya said.
The Belarusian opposition leader, whose supporters and Western governments say was the real winner of the country's presidential election in August 2020, reiterated her position that there can be no security for Ukraine without freedom for Belarus.
“This connection should be in the heads of the politicians from the NATO alliance,” she said in the interview.
Tsikhanouskaya’s concern stems from comments made by Russian authorities that have raised the specter of the potential use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine and since Lukashenka accepted a plan to place Russian nuclear arms in Belarus.
Lukashenka said on July 6 that a "certain number of nuclear warheads" had been moved to Belarus, adding that the tactical nuclear weapons had been deployed as a weapon of deterrence, not of attack.
Tsikhanouskaya said on the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster in April that an overwhelming majority of Belarusians were against plans to station Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus but that their opinion was not taken into consideration before the weapons were moved there.
She acknowledged that Ukrainians are fighting for freedom and security for the whole region and said that Belarusians should support them at every level.
“Ukraine should be given everything that it needs to battle the invading Russian forces,” she said. “When it needs arms, arms should be given. When it needs NATO membership, it should be given to Ukraine.”
