The Belarusian opposition leader called on the United States to impose sanctions on the Belarusian government, reflecting those imposed on Moscow.
In meetings with the US State Department and members of Congress this week, Svetlana Tsikhanovskaya said she had discussed both strengthening future sanctions and closing existing ones.
She also said she had provided the US government with evidence of Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko’s involvement in the Russian war in Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Tsikhanovskaya said sanctions “should be the same in force” as those imposed on Russia, “but different in structure” and should be targeted at state-owned banks and state-owned enterprises.
The opposition leader said she had talked to officials in Washington, DC, about ways to “impose more effective sanctions, close the remaining doors, freeze Lukashenko’s assets and block money given to him by the International Monetary Fund.” .
Tsikhanovskaya said she suggested using secondary sanctions to close such doors.
“We see Russia using Belarus to circumvent its own sanctions,” she said, citing the steel example.
However, she said the sanctions hit the Lukashenko regime, citing what she described as letters from the foreign minister for rapprochement, sent in recent weeks.
“I hope Lukashenko will not be able to deceive democracies again, as he has done many times before,” she said.
Tsikhanovskaya met with US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman – a meeting attended in part by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken – and Jim O’Brien, head of the US Department of State’s Sanctions Coordination Office.
Tsikhanovskaya told reporters that she had given O’Brien “documents with evidence of Lukashenko’s involvement in the war against Ukraine, as well as a list of companies and countries that have helped circumvent sanctions.”
She said that this included “mass evidence of rocket launches from our territory, movement of Russian equipment on the territory of Belarus.”
“This is inside information about some internal orders for the deployment of various Russian military equipment on our territory,” she continued. “So people have been gathering this information throughout the war. They are well documented and we have passed this evidence on to the government. “
Tsikhanovskaya said she did not believe the Belarusian army was involved in firing the missiles, and instead Lukashenko gave the land to Russian President Vladimir Putin to use as he wished.
“It’s already a world war. We are so afraid of the third world war, but it is already going on, “she said. “This is a war between democracy and autocracy.”
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