The head of the Belarusian opposition in exile, Svetlana Tihanovskaia, will leave Lithuania and settle in Poland
Svetlana Tihanovskaia, Photo: KAY NIETFELD / AFP / Profimedia
The head of the Belarusian opposition, Svetlana Tihanovskaia, will leave Lithuania, where she is in exile after being forced to flee the repression in her country in 2020, and will settle in Poland, according to several of her collaborators, reports AFP.
His departure takes place after the authorities in this Baltic country, located on the border with Belarus, decided in October 2025 to reduce the resources allocated to the protection of the leader of the Belarusian opposition, states Agerpres quoting France Presse. This measure worries those in her entourage and raises questions about the willingness of the city of Vilnius to continue hosting her.
According to several people close to her, Tihanovskaia and her team have decided to move to Warsaw soon as a precaution against the threat of reprisals from the Belarusian government.
Her aide, Denis Kutchinski, told reporters that Sergei Tikhanovsky, the opposition leader's husband, who was released from prison in Belarus last year, is currently in the United States with their children for security reasons.
Svetlana Tihanovskaia met with Polish President Karol Nawrocki this week in Warsaw.
She ran in the 2020 presidential election in Belarus, the result of which – the re-election of Aleksandr Lukashenko, in power since 1994 – triggered large-scale protests, which were brutally repressed by the authorities.
This repression caused tens of thousands of Belarusians to flee their country, mostly to neighboring Poland.
VIDEO Svetlana Tikhanovskaya: I was a housewife. Now they lead a revolution against the last dictator in Europe
Lithuania, where part of the Russian opposition is also in exile, also opened an investigation in early January into Leonid Volkov, the right-hand man of Russian dissident Aleksei Navalny, who died in prison under unclear circumstances in February 2024.
This investigation could lead to the cancellation of the residence permit of Volkov, a refugee in Lithuania, sentenced in absentia in Russia to 18 years in prison for denouncing the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Leonid Volkov, a close friend of Navalny, was attacked with a hammer
