Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya visited the International Centre for Defence and Security on 31 May 2021.
Tsikhanouskaya gave an overview of the current political state of affairs and the situation of political prisoners and mass detentions of peaceful protesters and journalists in Belarus, and the plans of the Belarusian opposition to achieve new and fair elections.
Thereafter Indrek Kannik, director of the ICDS, Kristi Raik, director of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute at the ICDS, Tomas Jermalavičius, head of studies at the ICDS and Eeva Eek-Pajuste, director of the Lennart Meri Conference at the ICDS had a frank exchange of views with Tsikhanouskaya about further possibilities of the West to support Belarusian people fighting for and standing for democracy, the impact of sanctions on Alexander Lukashenko’s regime and Russia’s influence in Belarus.
Read also latest commentary on the stunts of Lukashenko’s regime by Tomas Jermalavičius: “The EU and NATO can and should do a lot more to bolster resilience of individual allies at the frontier of freedom and democracy as well as apply much more significant economic pressure on the regime in Minsk. /…/ We need to fasten those seatbelts at long last. It should have been clear for a number of years that our security is no longer a no-thrills regular flight to a sunny place but instead a turbulent journey to an unclear destination that will just keep getting worse.”
