Lukashenka has allowed Putin to enter Belarusian soil to carry out aggression against his innocent neighbor, Ukraine. He may soon allow the Belarusian army to be used for this purpose.
Many of my employees and close and distant acquaintances write today how ashamed they are of such an act of the dictator, of him involving the country in this shameful war. But you have nothing to be ashamed of! You can and should be ashamed of your deeds, but not of the dictator’s actions, who has kept in prison more than a thousand of your compatriots who have spoken out against him. Or were you the one who voted for Lukashenka? Or was it you who served in his state apparatus of violence? No! You have tried everything in your power to replace this satrap. Moreover, hundreds of thousands of Belarusians tried to do it with you. Tens of thousands went through persecution, torture, inhuman conditions of detention of 30 people in several-person cells.
It’s true: many Belarusians have sold out to Lukashenka, and his boss in Moscow for bread with a thicker layer of butter on it, and, unfortunately, even more of them are brainwashed in the Soviet way. Sometimes they are your colleagues, neighbors, and even family members. It hurts. It can make you wonder “why” and “what to do?” But it can’t be a reason for you to feel ashamed.
Lithuanian capital held an action of unity and solidarity with Ukraine called “Light of Freedom.” Several thousand people came to it. Vilnius, Lithuania. February 24, 2022. Photo: CC / Belsat
It’s true, it is quite possible that if you and your compatriots in August 2020 had been more resolute if you had not allowed yourselves to be “peacefully” pushed to the outskirts of the city, but hundreds of thousands of you marched under the presidential palace and government buildings – the satrap could not stand it and nervously ran away. There were so many of you then that no riot police could have coped with. Only now do we know for sure that if things had turned out this way, the dictator would have returned, without a doubt—this time accompanied by Putin’s army.
Because that’s what the political architecture of this part of the world looks like right now. And it will stay that way as long as Russia is convinced that it can and must impose its will on the neighboring nations. Without Putin, there will be no Lukashenka. So, there is nothing to be ashamed of. It is necessary to work together for a common goal. Because today it is our common cause to help Ukraine as much as we can to rid our part of the world of post-Soviet dictatorship and Russian imperialism.
