Natalia Radina: I Agree With Tikhanouskaya's Statement That She Betrayed Belarusians

But even now, she is lying about her reasons for fleeing the country.

The Telegram channel of former Belarusian presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya published belated (by five years) explanations in an interview with VBC why, on the day after the presidential election, August 10, 2020, instead of declaring victory over Lukashenko and leading the protests, she, along with lawyer Maksim Znak and Viktor Babariko staffer Maria Kolesnikova, went to the CEC, from where she was subsequently taken to Lithuania by the Belarusian KGB.

Why she had to go to the CEC to "surrender" from Tikhanovskaya's new revelations has not become clear, but here is what she said about what happened in the building of the Central Election Commission:

"When I came to the CEC, I was met by two KGB officers. They took me to a separate room and started talking to me. They started intimidating, blackmailing my children. They said they knew where they were. That I would be detained. What they would do to them in the orphanage. That I wouldn't get to see them grow up. I'm the mother. I've been told in detail what awaits my children in the orphanage. And my oldest son needs special cochlear implants, batteries, cleaning. It was an added pressure. I talked to them for three hours. I asked them: "people want change. They want free elections. Let's start a dialog." But they were sure that if they forced me to leave, people would not take to the streets."

The interview says that the condition for Tikhanovska to be allowed to leave was that she recorded a video saying that people should not take to the streets so that "no blood would be spilled."

"After three hours, I gave in because my inner mother won the fight. It was a terribly painful choice. I couldn't believe I had to leave the country. I felt like people would see it as a betrayal. But I made my choice.

I was given 20 minutes to pack. I took only a small backpack with my documents. We were driven to the border. I couldn't believe I was already out of the country. I immediately recorded a video, "I'm out of the country. I'm sorry." To be honest, I was sure that people would stop everything. That they would support me. I felt like a traitor. But I'm so grateful to the Belarusians that they said, "Look, it's better for you to be free and continue the struggle than to sit in jail." And the people in Belarus organized themselves. They didn't need a leader. It was a real people's revolution," says Tikhanovskaya.

Tikhanovskaya's words about the children and the reasons for her departure are a cynical lie, says Natalia Radina, editor-in-chief of the website Charter97.org, who back in July 2020 helped take Svetlana's children to Lithuania.

"By election day, August 9, Svetlana Tihanovskaia's children were safe. Already in mid-July, together with Svetlana's mother, the children left for Vilnius. Let me remind you that in early June, after the arrest of Sergey Tikhanovsky, his wife asked me to take her and her children abroad, because "politics is not hers" and she started receiving threats because of her participation in the elections. I then asked the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry to make Lithuanian visas for Svetlana, her mother and children. It was not easy to do it, because at that time there was a coronavirus epidemic, and Belarusians were not allowed into the EU countries because of the lack of quarantine in the country. Moreover, Lithuanian diplomats had questions about Tihanouskaya herself at that time, because nobody knew her in Lithuania. Nevertheless, visas were issued under my guarantees, and Svetlana's mother and her children came to Vilnius, where I had rented a two-room apartment for them at my own expense.

I should note that Tikhanovskaya herself had repeatedly asked me to help her leave Belarus long before the election day. Each time I had to persuade her to stay in the country for the duration of the election campaign. People with political experience understood that Lukashenka would falsify the elections, and the majority of Belarusians were determined to oppose it. But it took at least one nominally opposition candidate to organize the protests.

Tikhanovskaya's claim that she left for Vilnius because her children could have been sent to an orphanage is a lie.

I agree with her claim that she betrayed people. There was a people's revolution in Belarus in 2020. Tikhanovskaya was not a leader then and is not now. It only amazes me that after the Belarusian security services took her out of Belarus by car, she dares to call herself a "national leader" for five years. Or is it just a clinical case, which should be dealt with not by us, but by specialists? On the one hand, the person considers herself a "traitor", on the other hand - a "leader".

In fact, the real leaders of the Belarusian revolution of 2020 were such brave and courageous people as Nikolai Statkevich, Pavel Seviarynets, Yevgeny Afnagel, Igor Olinevich, the same Sergei Tikhanovsky and many other brave Belarusians who started the protests and then ended up in prison. The real hero is the Belarusian people, not the impostors who 'leaked' the revolution."

Svetlana Tikhanovski's performance at the BT in August 2020

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