Page 49 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine May 2024

bne May 2024 Eastern Europe I 49
opposition had been united going into 2020, Lukashenko could have been ousted.
Also, to be honest, until the 2020 election, Tsikhanouskaya was just a caring house- wife, without any job, a good mother and wife raising little children in a depressing little Belarusian town. But having fled Belarus to Vilnius in the wake of the crack- down on the opposition protests in late 2020, she has been enjoying a luxurious and opulent lifestyle here in Lithuania.
Saying that she represents the Belarusian opposition now would be not true – the situation has changed dramatically. I wish she had done much more for the local Belarusian community [in Lithuania]. I’ve never heard her ask the Lithuanian government to address issues the Belarusians are dealing with here.
Belarus will hold a presidential election next year...
A couple of scenarios are plausible, although forecasting is very hard in this unstable time. First, we need to see if the Belarusian military will join the war in Ukraine. If this happens, it will be a catastrophe for Belarus. In this case, the election will be like the [presidential] election that just took place in Russia – very formal, with the winner known well in advance.
In the second plausible scenario, with Lukashenko trying again to open some doors to the West, Lukashenko might want to conjure up the picture of as free an election as possible, but it would be naïve to expect that opposition people will appear on the ballot.
In another scenario, which is being considered by the Lukashenko circle, Lukashenko vacates the presidential seat and becomes the new chairman of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus,
but that would be bad for Belarus, too – we’d simply see a Russian-style Putin- Medvedev-Putin rotation.
[Dmitry Medvedev was president of Russia between 2008 and 2012, as the Russian constitution barred Vladimir
Putin from competing for the post for a third consecutive term.]
The candidates currently being discussed [in Belarus] are very pro-Putin. If any of them becomes president, a much faster integration of Belarus into Russia could be expected.
Do you think that Lithuania, over time, will start to treat Ukrainian refugees differently – perhaps like the Belarusians? Will the authorities become suspicious and possibly deem some of them a threat to national security?
I cannot rule it out. I’ve spent 10 years here and I see that your authorities are increasingly wary and weary and tired of the record-high number of migrants in the country. [It is estimated that over
I am happy to have my both parents here too. The parents of my husband, we suspect, were murdered in the Belarusian town of Vitebsk at the end of 2022 – both were found dead on the same day...
That’s the reality in Belarus.
How do you see your own future in Lithuania?
The VSD case against me is very distracting, not only to me but to the organisation too, as instead of focusing on Belarus, we need to focus on the unfair treatment of Belarusian exiles here in Lithuania.
I am happy that most of my fellow countrymen understand that the accusations against me are political,
“The candidates currently being discussed
[in Belarus] are very pro-Putin. If any of them becomes president, a much faster integration of Belarus into Russia could be expected”
200,000 people of Slavic origin have settled in Lithuania since late 2020.]
It seems to me that Lithuanian politicians do not have a clear strategy or vision of what Lithuania look like in, say, five or 10 years from now. Part of them see migrants as necessary to replenish the drought in the workforce, however, some are fearful of them, but at the same time they are struggling to offer solutions to the cheap labour shortage.
Speaking of the Belarusians here, I believe their integration programmes were poorly or at least hurriedly executed.
Imagine, Belarusians need to pay €200 for a 10-class course of the Lithuanian language. It is ridiculous!
My own children already speak Lithuania, although they attend a Belarusian-language school with much focus on Lithuanian.
and they stand behind me, sharing stories of their family members or friends who ended up being in the eye of the VSD.
To make ends meet, I keep writing analytical articles for a number of Western media outlets. Nash Dom is still carrying out multiple projects, none of which is sponsored by the Lithuanian government.
Some more bad news came this week: Lithuania’s Migration Department informed my husband, Oleg Borsh- chevskogo, who is the editor of the website nash-dom.info, which belongs
to Nash Dom [both are deemed extremist in Belarus] that it has started the process to deport him, even though Oleg faces up to seven years in prison in Belarus.
We will continue fighting, however – for ourselves and the other Belarusians in Lithuania.
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