Page 47 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine May 2024

bne May 2024 Eastern Europe I 47
public figures, including prominent figures from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, United Russia and proponents of "Eurasianism."
This group contends that Burisma's financial contributions, specifically
an $18mn donation to the Ukrainian Armed Forces' "Army of Drones" project, constitute the financing of terrorism.
Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Putin was quick to blame the “Ukrainian direction” in the attacks and has used the incident to bolster
the Kremlin’s propaganda campaign to drum up support for his war in Ukraine, which is now into its third year.
Burisma has long been a subject of scrutiny after it hired Hunter Biden
on a large salary. He served on the company’s board from 2014 to 2019. His tenure has fuelled accusations of corruption and preferential treatment, though no concrete evidence has been presented to support claims of miscon- duct by the Bidens.
When he was president, Donald Trump tried to put pressure on Zelenskiy to bring charges against Hunter Biden,
by leveraging promises of aid to Ukraine, for his own political advantage. Trump's first impeachment as president in 2019 was sparked by a phone
call between Trump and Zelenskiy, in which Trump linked US military aid to Zelenskiy ordering a criminal investigation of the younger Biden.
The focus on Burisma and its alleged role in financing terrorism marks a significant escalation in the Kremlin’s propaganda as Russia’s authorities attempt to build a direct link between US officials and acts of terrorism within Russia. All of Russia was shocked by the attack in Crocus City Hall, the first serious terrorist incident in Russia in almost two decades.
Nobel Peace Prize nominee Olga Karatch on the squandered chance to change Belarus
Linas Jegelevicius in Vilnius
The life of Olga Karatch, head of the Belarusian Nash Dom (Our House) NGO in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, and nominee for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, has taken a nightmarish turn: the brave fighter for Belarus’ freedom is now fierily warding off the accusations
of Lithuania’s State Security Department (VSD) that she has collaborated with Russian intelligence and poses a threat to Lithuania’s national security.
“Unfortunately, I’ve become a victim of the politics – Belarusians have fallen
out of favour with the Lithuanian government. But the same fate awaits many Ukrainians here,” Karatch said to bne IntelliNews, 10 years after she fled from Belarus to Lithuania to protect her family.
Meanwhile, she sees little hope for change in Belarus. Almost four years on from the mass protests after the 2020 election, where many Belarusians saw a real chance to change the country, as next year’s presidential election approaches there is little hope of dislodging long- term incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko’s grip on power.
bne IntelliNews: Heralded as a staunch fighter for human rights and democracy in Belarus, you ended up being a threat to Lithuania’s national security, an astonishing change. What happened?
Olga Karatch: 10 years ago, I took my two little children to Lithuania. I was being threatened by Belarusian intelligence, the KGB, with the so-called decree 18 which stipulates children can be taken into state custody from what the agency deems a ‘disorderly parent’ – the decree can be applied to any parent participating in opposition activities. As I had always seen my life in Belarus, we did not ask for political asylum when we arrived here, especially as, until mid-March of 2020,
I kept going back and forth.
However, after the presidential election in Belarus in autumn 2020, my entire family was threatened. At the end of 2021, my husband, our children and
I spent 17 days in a heavily guarded shelter; for safety, we were whisked from one city to another – the local authorities had received information that the
Alexander Lukashenko regime planned to assassinate me. Only in late 2023 did
I ask the Lithuanian authorities to grant me political asylum, but I was rejected. No wonder – Lithuania’s intelligence has been lately repeating that Belarusians pose a risk to national security, and,
in my case, the VSD went even further and announced that I collaborated with Russian intelligence services, which is nonsense.
At the beginning of the year, the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania upheld a lower-tier court’s decision not to grant asylum without providing you any specific reason. You are contesting it at the Strasbourg- based human rights court, aren’t you?
Indeed so. Even in the court, Lithuania’s State Security Department did not provide any evidence to prove my ostensible guilt. All it said was that the information is secret and cannot be disclosed. In defending myself, I had no other choice than to lodge a complaint over what I believe has been a violation of my [human] rights with the European
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