Belarusian opponent Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa, traveling to Washington on Wednesday, urged her country to sever relations with its “colonialist” Russian neighbor.
• Read also: Russian plane worth $475m destroyed at airfield in Belarus, opposition says
• Read also: Belarus: start of the trial in absentia of the opponent in exile Tikhanovskaïa
• Read also: Start of the trial of Belarusian Nobel Prize winner Ales Bialatski
“It is time to oppose Russian interference in the internal affairs of Belarus,” she pleaded during a press conference in Congress.
Moscow “supports the illegitimate regime” and “carries out colonialist actions”, accused the 40-year-old opponent, who had run for president in 2020 once morest Alexander Lukashenko, the strong man of the country, in power for three decades .
Forced into exile, she is now the face of democratic forces in Belarus and the enemy of a regime whose brutal abuses she tirelessly denounces.
From Washington, Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa called on the Belarusians to break their “close relations with the Russian aggressor”.
“The military aggressor freely uses our territory, our airspace to attack and threaten Ukraine,” she regretted, calling on the Russian army to “completely withdraw from Belarus”.
In early March, a Belarusian court sentenced Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa in absentia to 15 years in prison, in a context of fierce repression orchestrated by the regime of Alexander Lukashenko.
The press conference in which she participated in the American Congress had been organized by two senators at the head of a parliamentary group in support of the Belarusian opposition.
“Mr. Lukashenko let the sovereign territory of Belarus be used to promote Mr. Putin’s expansionist project and facilitate unjustified attacks once morest Ukraine, ”denounced Jeanne Shaheen, senator from New Hampshire.