Belarusian Exile Government Asks Council of Europe to Declare Belarus a Russian-Occupied Country

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 28 – The Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic in Exile has welcomed the European Union’s decision to expand ties with Belarusian civil society and the opposition in exile and calls on the EU’s Council of Ministers and PACE to formally recognize that Belarus under Lukashenka is “under the effective control of the Russian Federation.”

            That status arose before Russia invaded Ukraine, the Rada says, and involves both the collaboration of Alyaksandr Lukashenka who has worked to suppress the Belarusian people and who had handed over effective power to the occupiers as well as they “de facto Russian military occupation” of parts of the country (facebook.com/radabnr/posts/339836934840345).

            The Rada notes that “Sviatlana Cichanouskaja, who should have assumed the office of President of Belarus in 2020 has declared absolute opposition to Putin’s aggression and to the use of Belarusian soil and airspace by Russia against Ukraine in particular” and that all Belarusian political centers in exie “have rallied in support of Ukraine.”

            According to the Rada statement, “the democratic will of the Belarusian people as a nation is to stand firmly together with Ukraine and with the community of democracies of the world and to see their country liberated from de facto occupation.  The BNR Rada calls upon the Council of Ministers and PACE to formally recognize and acknowledge that fact as well.”

            While it is unlikely that the EU bodies will declare Belarus an occupied country, the fact that they are expanding their cooperation with the Belarusian democrats in exile and with the hard-pressed civil society inside Belarus provides a useful model for the kind of steps the West is going to have to take in the new world order that Putin is trying to impose.