Ex-political Prisoner Natalya Dulina Opposed The Lifting Of Sanctions Against Lukashenko's Regime
7- 27.06.2025, 17:22
- 6,998
Repression in the country continues.
Former political prisoner Natalya Dulina, who was released last Saturday during the visit of U.S. President's Special Envoy Keith Kellogg to Minsk, gave an interview to the Russian Novaya Gazeta. In it, she commented on whether the Americans should make a deal with the regime to lift the sanctions imposed on Lukashenko's regime in exchange for the release of political prisoners.
- You said that the Americans promised: the latest pardon is "only the beginning, and in this way they will try to get everyone out." The New York Times wrote about a "grand bargain" - the mass release of political prisoners in exchange for the lifting of some U.S. sanctions. Would that be the right thing to do?"
- I want to start by saying that I'm not a political analyst. As an ordinary person, I believe: it is wrong to lift sanctions in exchange for the lives of people who are now being held [in colonies]. It's like negotiating with an ogre that he won't eat people anymore. To agree that he will let out the people he has already put in the refrigerator to eat, and expect that he will not eat any more people.
Pardon the pathos, but as we are talking to you, the process is continuing: one person is getting out of there, and five are coming in. Maybe now more people are getting "chemistry" - restriction of freedom, not a colony, but everything goes on.
So I'm like Natalia Dulina - I'm against the lifting of sanctions, I'm in favor of these people getting out, but I don't believe that after releasing all these people and getting the sanctions lifted, Lukashenko won't do the same thing. We've seen this before.
- What should we do then? Lukashenko has apparently released you in advance in order to negotiate the lifting of sanctions now.
- This is the first step, and now he will ask for coffee in bed, then a game console, then something else. It makes me very uneasy. As a philistine, I believe that as long as Lukashenko has Putin behind his back or shoulder to shoulder, he cannot be trusted. Lukashenko is not that independent, and Putin will cover for him.
I understand that bargaining is necessary, otherwise we will get nothing at all. Well, let politicians and specially trained people do it, and now I'm like a cunning Belarusian peasant from folklore: "Uh, no, I don't believe something, you can't trust him, he will cheat, he will deceive". I don't know how to do it, but I don't believe him, that's all.
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