OPINION: What About Belarus, President Zelensky? More Silence?

Mr. President, with all due respect, I’m returning to the theme which you obviously, for some mysterious reason, seem to find embarrassing and wish to avoid. That is, Kyiv’s official relations with Belarus.

Mr. President, your advisors in your Presidential Office – because I understand that the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has been long sidelined by the fact that it is not allowed much of a say – will no doubt have informed you that there were pseudo-parliamentary elections in Belarus last weekend on Sunday, Feb. 25.

That the voters overwhelmingly supported Aleksander Lukashenko’s line – as befits an election in a dictatorship rigged to the wishes of the despot in Minsk maintained by Moscow, who rules by terror, with more than 1,600 political prisoners.

That the voters, if we are to believe his propogandists, confirmed overwhelmingly that they are behind Lukashenko, his authoritarian rule, subservience to Moscow and, as per its dictates, his anti-Western stance.

The US and others have dismissed these as sham elections. Yet Ukraine remains silent!

Moreover – surprise, surprise, following the example of his Russian master, Vladimir Putin’s – Lukashenko has just announced that he will run for president yet again in 2025. No response from Kyiv, as if there were no interest.

And what has the Belarusian dictator been saying about Ukraine in recent days? That it should negotiate with Russia because the Kremlin supposedly wants a peaceful settlement. If not, the Ukrainian leadership will lose the entire country. 

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Earlier, Lukashenko declared, again presumably speaking on behalf of the Kremlin, that Ukraine “will, all the same, be ours” and that the Ukrainian leadership is preparing to flee the country.

On the other hand, the leaders of the Belarusian democratic opposition continue unequivocally to express their support for Ukraine.

As President-elect of Belarus, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the Belarusian democratic opposition leader, who is widely believed to have won the presidential election in her country in 2020 that was rigged by Lukashenko, told Kyiv Post last week regarding Ukraine’s struggle against Russia’s imperialistic aggression:

“For us in Belarus, it’s also a fight for our nation’s existence. It became our common fight. We’re standing up for our freedom and the freedom of Ukraine.”

It’s more than clear who is who, and who is on the side of Ukraine, and who is Russia’s stooge.

President Zelensky, how much longer will you continue to ignore the Belarusian democratic opposition and its leaders? There is no excuse (be transparent and tell us if there is one), and your continuation to do so in the circumstances is both inexplicable and unworthy.

Isn’t this the right time to use your fantastic skills as a communicator to address messages directly to the Belarusian and Russian people, over the heads of the state-controlled media?

Continually addressing Western partners is understandably a priority, but for a champion of freedom and decency, ignoring the subject peoples under Lukashenko and Putin doesn’t make any sense.