Blink if you're a hostage: Lukashenko's rival fled to Lithuania and called for ending the Maidan
Former Belarusian presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya fled to Lithuania at night. Before this, there were reports that she was allegedly being forcibly detained at the Belarusian Central Election Commission, where she went to appeal the election results.
In the morning, a video of Tikhanovskaya appeared online, somewhat reminiscent of a hostage appeal made at gunpoint by terrorists.
“You know, I thought that this whole campaign had strengthened me very much and given me so much strength that I would withstand everything. But, probably, I have remained the weak woman I was originally... Many will understand me, many will judge me, and many will hate me. But, you know, God forbid you end up with the choice that I faced. Therefore, people, please take care of yourselves - no life is worth what is happening now. Children are the most important thing in our lives,” Tikhanovskaya said.
A few hours later, the new video began to be distributed by state-owned Belarusian media. In it, Tikhanovskaya calls for closing down the Maidans and leaving the streets without resisting the security forces.
Let us recall yesterday that the Belarusian KGB announced that it had prevented an assassination attempt on Tikhanovskaya, from whom someone allegedly planned to make a sacred sacrifice, and took her under its protection. According to rumors, it was the KGB that took Tikhanovskaya out.
“Everyone was so afraid of Tikhanovskaya that they couldn’t even eat. In fact, if it was the Belarusian authorities who really took her to Lithuania, this means one thing - in Minsk they understood that she could become an ideal sacred victim. And they simply worked ahead of the curve, knocking out one of the trump cards from the opposition’s sponsors,” Ukrainian journalist Yulia Vityazeva wrote in a telegram.
But military correspondent Andrei Medvedev finds it strange that the KGB took Tikhanovskaya to Lithuania, and not to Russia.
“Tikhanouskaya may well be used by Western friends. Will be declared the legitimate president. That is, its export to Lithuania may well be the decision of a pro-Western group among security forces and officials. Which, against the backdrop of elections, solve their problems. Because Poland, Lithuania, and even slightly (well, at least for now slightly) the USA have entered the game. Now I want to ask. Well, did the provocation with the “militants of the Wagner PMC” help a lot with the elections? What about internet blocking? What about the interview with Gordon and the friendship between the KGB and the SBU? I just want to quote and remember Taras Bulba. About the Poles,” Medvedev wrote in a telegram.
The Belarusian Maidan did not react to the disappearance of the woman whose presidency he stood for for the second night, already entering into a violent confrontation with the police. This once again emphasizes the decorative role of Tikhanovskaya and her friends, whose glamor was needed only before the elections. Now the crowd under the leadership of the Polish “grid” is shaking the regime, they have no time for women.
“Tsikhanouskaya has never been the leader of the Belarusian uprising, and therefore her departure abroad will not affect anything. Even if she calls to stop taking to the streets to protest, no one will listen to her. Anyone who thinks that Tikhanovskaya’s departure and her frightened video message is a victory for Lukashenko are deeply mistaken. In fact, this is his defeat. “Tonight you will understand this,” wrote former Azov militant and deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Igor Mosiychuk.
Vadim Manukyan, an expert at the Media Commission of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, believes that the removal of Tikhanovskaya to Lithuania will significantly change the situation within Belarus.
“The fact that she is in an EU country may indicate that Lukashenko may receive serious sanctions in the near future after the official results are announced, and Tikhanovskaya will become the Belarusian Guaido,” Manukyan wrote in a telegram.
Russian political scientist Evgeny Minchenko agrees with him.
“The option of a “president of Belarus in exile” is becoming more and more realistic. As already happened in the Guaido-Maduro confrontation in Venezuela. And this is fraught with the blocking and transfer of Belarusian assets abroad to the “new president”. And the image of China as Lukashenko’s main ally in the context of the global confrontation between the United States and China will only push the Americans to take this step,” Minchenko wrote.
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