Exiled Belarus leader says her people are resisting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said other Belarusians have travelled to Ukraine to help defend Kyiv against a Russian assault.

Belarus‘s exiled opposition leader says ordinary Belarusians are actively resisting the invasion of Ukraine, disrupting railway supplies to Russian forces and warning Ukrainians about movements of Russian aircraft.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said other Belarusians have travelled to Ukraine to help defend Kyiv against a Russian assault.

Tsikhanouskaya told a defence conference in Ottawa that most Belarusians do not support the invasion of Ukraine, saying “antiwar sentiment in Belarus is on the rise.”

The leader, who gained a standing ovation after addressing the conference via video link, said it was important to distinguish between Alexander Lukashenko’s Kremlin-controlled regime and the Belarusian people who have no way to influence his policies.

She said Ukraine’s bold resistance to the Kremlin was inspiring the Belarusian resistance to Lukashenko, saying “the fate of Belarusia and Ukraine is interconnected.”

Tsikhanouskaya claimed a first-round victory over Lukashenko in the 2020 Belarusian presidential election after she stood in the place of her husband, who had been detained. She was repeatedly threatened, forced to go abroad into hiding, and several members of her campaign arrested during the campaign.

She disputed the eventual election of Lukashenko, who is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

She called on Canada and other Western countries to introduce tougher sanctions on Belarus including on its state banks, warning that Russia is using Belarusian banks to circumvent sanctions on its own institutions. This is a “huge loophole,” she said.