After the recent meeting of Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausseda, the government of the Baltic state announced termination of the contract between the Lithuanian Railways and Belaruskali due to its incompatibility with the national security interests of Lithuania. The contract will cease to be valid on February 1 this year. Franak Vyachorka, senior adviser to Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, spoke on the air of the program “Belsat Studio” about the achievements in relations with the Lithuanian government. He also shared the plans of the office for the near future.
According to Franak Vyachorka, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya and the Lithuanian president spoke about stopping the transit of Belaruskali cargo, as well as adopting the sixth package of sanctions against the Lukashenka regime.
“The president said that he would do his best to have the sixth package adopted without waiting for any provocation from Lukashenka. But they also talked about Latvia and Estonia joining the transit blockade. Because on the one hand Lithuania has said that it stops this transit, but on the other hand Latvia and Estonia could potentially let some of this product through their railroads and their ports. And to prevent this from happening, it is important to take preventive measures, to warn Latvia and Estonia that this would not be good.”
According to Vyachorka, the Lithuanian government had terminated the contracts with Belarus because of their incompatibility with the national security of the neighboring country.
“Belaruskali slyly found loopholes, quickly concluded contracts, made three entire prepayments to make it difficult for Lithuania to terminate these contracts with the Belarusian Railways. And Lithuania, understanding that it is dealing with bandits, with terrorists, has recognized this scam as a matter of national security. And it has the right to do so because for many years Lukashenka terrorized both Lithuania and other neighboring countries and enjoyed good relations, but after 2020 everything changed. And it became clear to the neighboring countries of Belarus that it became dangerous to deal with him.
Franak Vyachorka admits that the effect of such a step of the Lithuanian government will affect not only Lukashenka’s regime but the entire welfare of Belarus. However, it is a necessary measure that must be taken to restore democracy in the country.
“Our goal is for these losses to be short-term, for the situation in Belarus to change, so that Belaruskali, the oil industry, and other businesses could resume their work. But this will only be possible after a new free election. Not after the referendum, not after imitation of reforms, but after real elections, after the release of political prisoners”.
The strike on Belaruskali is not accidental, because, according to Franak Vyachorka, the regime often evades sanctions with the help of this campaign.
“Belaruskali is the largest enterprise, but it’s also the largest element of the grand corruption scheme of Lukashenka’s regime. Smuggling of cigarettes and other sanctioned products to the EU countries is carried out by Belaruskali trains, so by closing these loopholes of Belaruskali, the EU is also destroying the corruption scheme.
Franak Vyacorka also shared the plans of Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s team for the future.
“Our task for the next six months is to make sure that Ukraine joins the sanctions against the petrochemical complex, as Ukraine is the second economic partner for Belarus after Russia.”
