What Else Did Tsikhanouskaya "forgot" To Tell The Belarusians?

• Natallia Radzina
• 12.08.2025, 15:54

It's very hard to sweep 15,000 euros under the rug.

It is striking how quickly the Belarusian media "leaked" the topic of 15 thousand euros, which Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya took from the Belarusian special services. How easily they limited themselves to absolutely unconvincing explanations why she kept silent for five years about this envelope with money, which she took before leaving Belarus on the day after the presidential election.

Pardon me, but the explanation "I was ashamed" is designed for idiots. If she had told everything honestly as soon as she was safe in Vilnius, it would not have aroused suspicion.

And so it turns out that the person who calls herself the "leader" of the Belarusian opposition, in fact, accepted a bribe from the head of one of the Belarusian special services, and kept silent about it until he was pushed to the wall by the video evidence shown on TV.

And the whole "democratic public" in the person of NGOs controlled by the office quickly preferred to sweep everything under the carpet, as other uncomfortable topics were swept under the carpet: Cooperation with the KGB and the flight with donor money of the "speaker" of the "coordination council" Anjelika Melnikova, the data leak of the office projects "Belarusian Gayun" and "Black Book of Belarus", scandals related to the work of funds designed to help political prisoners, the lack of accountability in ByHelp Alexei Leonchik, the immoral and disgusting behavior of the head of BySol Andrei Strizhak. None of these topics was even discussed at the last "New Belarus" conference held in Warsaw. Those who even tried to raise painful issues were shut up and accused of "working for the authorities."

I can't help but ask logical questions, which I had after the video of Tsikhanouskaya taking money from the head of the OAC, General Pavlyuchenko, was shown on BT.

When did Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya's relationship with the Belarusian security services begin and how long did it last?

We know that the day before, August 10, 2020, the day after the presidential election, Tsikhanouskaya went to the Central Election Commission together with lawyer Maksim Znak and her associate Maria Kolesnikova. Why did she go there? What other complaints did the dictator need to file instead of declaring himself president and joining the mass protests that have already begun in Minsk and cities of Belarus?

What was going on directly in the office of the head of the CEC, where KGB officers were talking to Tsikhanouskaya? We have already heard about the threats to take away the children, who by that time were in Vilnius. I told how at Svetlana's request took her children and mother to Lithuania back in July 2020. So this version of her version of events, I'm sorry, I don't believe.

And neither does the fact that Tsikhanouskaya, as she claims, "never wanted to leave the country." Because throughout the election campaign Svetlana constantly said that she wanted to leave Belarus.

It was all strange to me. I didn't expect that she would turn out to be so cowardly. Why was it necessary to get involved in all this and run for president? The election campaign was underway in the regions, there were rallies and meetings with voters, where quite a lot of people gathered. I remember after the first such rally, when a lot of people came out and everything looked very inspiring, I called Svetlana and said: "Sveta, everything is fine, you're doing great, we have to keep going...". And I heard back: "No, I'm leaving, I don't want to, it's not mine, I don't like it all, I feel bad, I don't want to be here, I'm leaving". Such scenes were repeated regularly.

Tsikhanouskaya had the intention to leave Belarus from the very beginning: in early June, when she asked for visas for her and her children, and in July and early August, a week before the elections.

In the CEC Svetlana recorded a video in which she tearfully informed the voters that "we lost" and "we should go home". The video was broadcasted on all Belarusian TV channels.

After arriving in Vilnius, Tsikhanouskaya immediately published another video, where she said that she was a "weak woman," had to leave for Lithuania and again urged Belarusians not to participate in the protests. At that time, people were actively discussing that Tsikhanouskaya had recorded these videos because her husband was held hostage and she was allegedly shown footage of Sergei being tortured in prison. However, in a conversation with me, she denied this version.

After this video, I received a call not from a crying and confused, but from a satisfied and confident person. The conversation was in front of witnesses. I was struck by this contrast: I had just watched the second video with the call to the Belarusians to go home, recorded, I repeat, in Vilnius (why would you have recorded it if you had already broken free?!).

I asked Tsikhanouskaya directly: "Tell the truth, how you were threatened at the Central Election Commission. Weren't you blackmailed by Sergei?"

Svetlana sharply denied it: "No, I was not blackmailed by Sergei. I was simply told that I was to blame for the fact that people took to the streets, that blood was spilled. But it wasn't me who organized the protests, it was you who organized everything from Vilnius and Warsaw!"

I was amazed: Tsikhanouskaya's accusations sounded in the style of Lukashenka's propaganda. I answered her that the blood is on Lukashenko's hands, he used force against civilians and urged her to focus on further struggle. Suggested to call people to strike immediately. Svetlana also sharply stated that she was not going to do that, but to focus on the creation of a "coordination council". After this conversation, I stopped communicating with her, because I realized that this person had some goals of her own, which were incomprehensible to me.

Further on, you know everything: how the CC was created with a presidium of strange people without any experience of mass street protests (and only they had the right to vote for some reason), and about the plan to hold aimless walking marches only on Sundays, which led to a decrease in street activity and brutal suppression of people's protests. And on Tsikhanouskaya's part, in response to this, despite numerous meetings with Western leaders, there were no calls for economic sanctions against Lukashenko's regime for a very long time, even though people had already been killed during the protests and thousands of political prisoners had been thrown into prisons. The first serious economic sanctions against the dictatorship were imposed only in May 2021, thanks to the stupidity of Lukashenko himself, who boarded the Ryanair plane with Protasevich on board.

So I have a clear feeling that Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is not telling us the whole story again, and the propagandists have shown us only a part of the recorded material. Perhaps she has neither a single roll in her closet, nor a single skeleton.

Natallia Radzina, editor-in-chief of Charter97.org.