Much has been written about torture, KGB (Belarusian secret police) tactics and protest-related deaths in Minsk and elsewhere since 2020. disputed elections.
However, there are still voices from abroad condemning Belarusians proving that we are to blame for Russia using it as a base to attack Ukraine from our territory; or that we were not brave enough to permanently oust our longtime dictator Alexander Lukashenko.
It diminishes our courage.
Belarusians protesting against Russian aggression have been tortured under arrest.
The mothers of Belarusian soldiers gathered in the Minsk Cathedral were detained after a prayer for peace. The activist who photographed the moving Russian soldiers will be charged.
Such seemingly minor acts of civil strife are taking place despite years of repression, with almost any independent initiative immediately destroyed by the Lukashenko government before it took root.
Those who can still contribute to the fight. Belarusian cyber partisans are paralyzing the railways to disrupt the logistics of the Russian army, even though such activists face the death penalty that still exists in Belarus.
Networks of solidarity and resistance exist underground. The Belarusian diaspora in Poland and Germany is volunteering to help arriving Ukrainian refugees.
At the same time, those state officials who are serving the Lukashenko regime are saying on television and publicly that they have no knowledge of the Russian helicopters here, despite numerous attacks from Belarusian land.
Those who support the Lukashenko regime make up less than a third of the population. They are bombarded with state propaganda, which itself often cites the hard-right Alternative to Germany (AfD) party and strange claims that the West is to blame for Putin’s war.
Sometimes, in recent years, Belarusians have been ridiculed for peaceful protests with flowers rather than Molotov cocktails.
However, these critics do not mention that European policymakers have signaled to Belarus’s democratic forces that peaceful protests will be a prerequisite for Western support. The West wanted to avoid a possible confrontation when protesters called for Kremlin intervention to stabilize the situation, as Moscow would say.
Even after the crimes of the Lukashenko regime were uncovered after the fraudulent 2020 presidential elections, the EU was lobbying to remove some sensitive items from the sanctions list.
And frankly, the EU acted decisively towards Belarus only after the hijacking of a Ryanair plane in 2021. May, when the interests of EU citizens were harmed.
2020 the post-election crisis was never resolved, but protesters were forced underground, and Lukashenko remained in power with terrorist tactics with the help of Vladimir Putin.
Without the Kremlin’s money to support the economy and the threat that Moscow would see any Western mediation as an interference in Belarus’s sovereign affairs, Lukashenko’s illegitimate regime would have collapsed.
And the price that Belarus pays for the Kremlin’s support, for the people of Belarus, for Ukraine and for Europe is high.
Belarus has allowed Russian troops to be deployed on its territory to attack Ukraine. Minsk held an unfair constitutional referendum, which helped strengthen the regime’s powers and further reduce civil liberties. Belarus’s neutral status has been lifted, giving its territory even more scope for Russian military use.
At the moment, it is inconceivable that Lukashenko would say “no” to any of Putin’s demands: on the way from Lithuania to Belarus, Lithuanian activists put a new road sign with the inscription: “Minsk (occupied).”
In the West, it was strategically wise to resume relations with the Belarussian leadership after the annexation of Crimea, when Lukashenko introduced himself as not the worst man in the Chamber.
But the promises he made proved worthless.
His promise to the EU to protect their common border? It helped the migration flow in 2021.
He stated that Ukraine would never be attacked from Belarus. But skeptics downplayed the threat of Russian aggression by calling it a worrying label.
When the Astrava nuclear power plant was built near the Belarusian-Lithuanian border, Lithuanians warned that the power plant was a Russian-backed geopolitical tool that posed a threat to the Baltic states.
When Moscow forced Minsk to forge closer ties, many downplayed the idea that Putin would eventually expand his power in Belarus through political integration or that he would establish a military base there.
Here we are, however. The worst predictions have come true.
Is it not time for Europe to finally focus on us?
Comments are closed.