Belarusian opposition leader asks West for help on troop buildup

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An exiled Belarusian opposition leader is asking Western countries to spell out sanctions they would enact if tens of thousands of Russian soldiers in her country fail to depart this month – a military positioning that neighbouring Baltic states worry is the next phase of Moscow’s tightening grip on Minsk.

“There should be declarations that if the troops stay it will be met with consequences,” said Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya in an interview Friday at her office in Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital.

She called on Western leaders “to declare Belarusian independence is not up for trade” and that “nobody has the right to invade or share our territory.”

Russia is estimated to be deploying 30,000 troops to Belarus this month with the consent of Alexander Lukashenko. The Belarusian leader retained his hold on power in August, 2020, despite widespread allegations of voting fraud, by crushing mass demonstrations against him. His only staunch ally has been Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The massing of Russian troops on Belarus territory has received less attention than Moscow’s buildup of more than 100,000 soldiers near the border with Ukraine but is alarming the Baltic states, two of which share a border with Belarus and fear this may reflect a projection of Russia’s territory right to their doorstep.

“Belarus has ceased to exist as an independent country, particularly from a military perspective,” Latvia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Artis Pabriks told reporters in Riga this week during a press conference with Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand.

Ottawa’s biggest military deployment is in Latvia, with about 600 soldiers located roughly 275 kilometres from the border with Belarus.

Moscow and Minsk say they are merely conducting joint military exercises that are slated to end Feb. 20. The gathering of troops however also gives Russia another reason to increase military strength near Ukraine, which lies south of Belarus. The United States and Britain have warned that Mr. Putin is mobilizing for action against Kyiv.

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NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg described the massing of soldiers in Belarus as “the biggest Russian mobilization there since the Cold War.” It is being augmented with special troops, special operations forces, SU-35 fighter jets, S-400 air-defence systems and nuclear-capable Iskander missiles.

Mantas Adomenas, Lithuania’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, said in an interview Friday that it looks to him like Mr. Lukashenko is “allowing Russia to rent out his territory to be used for some very aggressive posturing” against Ukraine.

Belarus also offers Moscow a rapid staging ground from which to move on the Baltic states or seize a land corridor to join Belarusian territory with Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea. If Russia were to take it, the Baltics’ land connection with mainland Europe would be severed.

Mr. Adomenas said if the Russians do not draw down their forces in Minsk after Feb. 20, he fears the “de facto Anschluss occupation of Belarus may take place,” using a term that refers to a 1938 political union between Austria and Germany.

Ms. Tsikhanouskaya said neither the Belarusian people nor opposition forces in exile would allow Russia to annex Belarus, which gained independence 30 years ago during the collapse of the Soviet Union. “Belarusians will never accept losing their independence,” she said. “We have been a democracy for too long. We are not Russians.”

She cited speculation that Russia and Belarus could announce that they were conducting an endless series of military drills together.

The opposition leader, whom many Belarusians believe won the past presidential election, said she hopes military and civilian elites around Mr. Lukashenko would oust him if Moscow’s military buildup lingers. “Maybe if Russian troops will not leave, those people will see Lukashenko is losing control and they will take control into their own hands.”

Ms. Tsikhanouskaya said she and her allies would never allow Russia to take control in Minsk. She said dissidents with access to Belarus’s infrastructure – both from within the country and via internet from abroad – have the “cyber access” necessary to shut down the country.

“They could stop everything,” she said, adding that it’s a last-resort power to be used “when there are signs of annexation.”

The Belarusian politician said she’s not certain what kind of pact Mr. Lukashenko has struck with Mr. Putin. “Nobody knows. We understand that for this support, Lukashenko has to pay. Is he selling our enterprises? Is he selling our independence? Is he selling our land? Everything is behind a curtain.”

She warned that not enough attention is being paid to a referendum Mr. Lukashenko has scheduled for later this month that could pave the way for the return of nuclear weapons to Belarus. It had more than 80 nuclear warheads on its soil when the Soviet Union collapsed; these were later transferred to Russia.

The proposed constitutional amendments in the referendum would also scrap clauses about Belarus’s “neutrality” and “non-nuclear status.” Mr. Lukashenko has offered to play host to Russia’s nuclear weapons if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization moves U.S. atomic bombs from Germany to Eastern Europe.

Ms. Tsikhanouskaya and her advisers said the West’s sanctions to date on Belarus have been riddled with loopholes that weaken their impact. Franak Viacorka, a senior adviser to Ms. Tsikhanouskaya, said Canada, the United States, Britain and Europe need to go much further in targeting sectors of the Belarusian economy, state banks and Mr. Lukashenko’s friends in the business elite.

Mr. Viacorka said a late January decision by Lithuania to ban the transit of Belarusian potash – a fertilizer ingredient – from being transported on the tracks of state-owned Lithuanian Railways was the “first really strong sanctions.”

To date, Canada – in concert with the United States, the European Union and Britain – has targeted dozens of top Belarusian civil and military figures alleged to be involved in human-rights violations in the wake of the disputed 2020 election.

Ottawa has also targeted specific companies believed to generate money for the Belarusian government, including an air navigation services company, an oil company, a logistics company and two automobile plants. It has also imposed some sanctions targeting specific sectors, such as oil and gas and finance.

With reports from Reuters and The Associated Press

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