"They Create A Parallel Reality": Tikhanovska's Visit To Kyiv Makes No Practical Sense

• 28.05.2026, 9:39

Lukashenko needs not to troll, but to solve the issue drastically.

Natallia Radzina, editor-in-chief of Charter97.org, in an interview with Ukrainian YouTube channel "Radio NV" commented on Svetlana Tikhanovska's visit to Kiev, spoke about the problems of Belarusian volunteers and the threat from Lukashenko's regime to Ukraine and Western countries.

- What is the significance of Tikhanovska's visit for Kiev, for Belarus? Obviously, I'm not talking about official Minsk, only about the opposition and Belarusians in exile?

- This visit, of course, is rather symbolic, I honestly don't see any practical benefit from it. Because, in my opinion, it happened too late.

The visit would have made some sense in 2020-2021, i.e. immediately after the Belarusian revolution, when mass protests against the falsification of the results of the presidential election took place in Minsk and other cities of the country, and when it was necessary, including Ukraine, to impose economic sanctions against Lukashenko's regime. And then Svetlana Tikhanovska's visit would have mattered.

Now, in 2026, I believe that a huge number of opportunities to change the situation in Belarus have been missed. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya herself is not the leader of the Belarusian opposition today. She has squandered any popular support for all these years and has no influence on the situation in Belarus today.

- But this symbolism, how much do we need it here? It seems to me that it is necessary to have certain personalities, a certain person who would be this representative of free Belarus. If it is not Tikhanovskaya, who could it be?

- There are quite a lot of people representing the Belarusian opposition today. And Tikhanovskaya is just one of the representatives of the Belarusian opposition today. By the way, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Sibiga noted this when he announced her visit to Kiev.

This was actually due to the fault of Svetlana herself, who showed cowardice in 2020. She was the only opposition presidential candidate who fled Minsk almost immediately after the presidential election. I will remind you, her office adopted a failed strategy to drain the Belarusian protests. This led to the defeat of the revolution.

There have been a lot of scandals over the years, including corruption scandals. A huge amount of data of Belarusians was leaked to the special services, because of which thousands and thousands of people were imprisoned. Therefore, unfortunately, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has lost any credibility. I am forced to state this.

And it is very important to note that the elections to the so-called "coordination council of the opposition," which was held by Svetlana Tikhanovskaya's office, have recently taken place. Out of seven million Belarusian voters, only two thousand people took part in these elections. And after all, there are about a million citizens of Belarus in emigration today.

- You see the potential to support Belarus, which disagrees with the regime of the usurper Alexander Lukashenko, to do it constructively, aiming at the idea of supporting Belarus, not personalities. What is this potential?

- The most important thing is to define a strategy with regard to Belarus. And, in my opinion, the Ukrainian authorities should clearly decide for themselves what they intend to do in order to secure their country from the north.

It seems to me that without the liberation of Belarus, the threat from our country, unfortunately, will always hang over both Ukraine and the countries of the West. Accordingly, without the liberation of Belarus from the pro-Russian puppet regime of Lukashenko, there cannot be any security in the Belarusian direction.

When defining the strategy towards Belarus, it is important for Ukraine to form Belarusian military units on the territory of the country. And in 2022, when a large-scale war began, including Russian troops entering your country from the territory of Belarus, Belarusian volunteer battalions appeared in Ukraine.

The largest of them was the Kastus Kalinovsky regiment. I myself came to Kiev in 2023, met with the soldiers of Kalinowski's regiment and other units that emerged then in the International Legion. I saw that these people needed real support and help. And together with activists of the civil campaign "European Belarus" we were able to find this help and attract it for Kalinowski's regiment.

From the side of Svetlana Tihanovska, who came to Kiev only in 2026, no help was given to Belarusian volunteers. Although this office received both from Western funds and private patrons hundreds of millions of euros. There were statistics that Tikhanovska's office, her structure received 318 million euros from the European Union and the United States in just four years, from 2020. In six years, I think, this amount is already 500 million euros.

Would it have been impossible then to find money and help the Belarusian volunteers? But they did not provide such assistance. And now, of course, the situation is already difficult, because today there are practically no Belarusian volunteer associations in Ukraine. All this happened because of the lack of assistance, because of the lack of a strategy on the part of Ukraine, a clear understanding that it is necessary to transfer these volunteers to the north and prepare, if not an entry, then at least sabotage, as it is being done now by the "Russian Volunteer Corps" on the territory of Russia.

Without understanding that it is necessary that Belarusian volunteers do prepare for the operation in Belarus, these military associations, of course, are very difficult to form in Ukraine.

- I'm not talking about choosing a single structure that we will consider legitimate. No. Rather, I am talking about nourishing those who are really effective.

- Belarusian volunteers would be effective. I can tell you that quite a few Belarusians went to Ukraine. Hundreds and hundreds of Belarusians went to fight in 2022. And I was sure that the number of these people would amount even to thousands.

Perhaps there would have been a real formation of some Belarusian brigade within the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but for this purpose it had to be clearly decided that Belarusian volunteers should be deployed in the north and participate in operations on the territory of Belarus. Because all the volunteers I met and talked to were going to Ukraine in the hope of liberating their own country.

The same visit of Tikhanovska. That's what it's for? I'm reading your news agency UNIAN, and it reports that this visit is happening "because Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky wants to troll Lukashenko." With all due respect to the President of Ukraine: you can troll Lukashenko all you want, you can keep pulling his whiskers, but maybe we should somehow solve the issue radically?

- Is now the moment to start talking seriously about the formation of volunteer battalions that could be located in Chernihiv, Volyn, Rivne regions - on the entire stretch separating us from the territory of Belarus?

- Of course, we should talk about it, but not with Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. Because I will remind you of the facts.

You know that Svetlana Tikhanovskaya creates a parallel reality in exile. That is, she is supposedly the "president", she has a "cabinet" with "ministers". There is a "coordinating council" with only two thousand votes last time.

So, she has always had so-called "ministers of defense." The first such "minister" of defense was Valery Sakhashchik, former commander of the Brest Airborne Assault Brigade. He claimed that he intended to create a "Pogonya" regiment in Ukraine.

As soon as Valeriy Sakhashchik entered this "office" of Tihanovska and got access to resources, for some reason the "Pogonya" regiment was not created, but on the contrary disappeared. Even the unit on the basis of which they were going to build this regiment disappeared.

After Sakhashchyk left this post, the former deputy commander of the Kastus Kalinovsky regiment Vadim Kabanchuk took his place. And what do we have at the moment? Kalinowski's regiment has also been destroyed. Although this office had and has huge financial resources, access to Western politicians, they have the opportunity to meet with everyone and discuss the problems of Belarusian volunteer associations. That is, the Kalinowski regiment does not exist today.

And when I hear that Sviatlana Tikhanouskaya is going to "meet with some fighters of the Kalinowski regiment", I do not understand what they are talking about, because the same Vadim Kabanchuk personally informed me six months ago that the Kalinowski regiment does not exist anymore. It has collapsed.

And moreover, I can say that the same Tikhanovskaya does not provide any assistance to Belarusian veterans who fought in Ukraine, but today go to Poland or Lithuania.

First of all, they have very serious problems with documents in the European Union, because they do not want to give them political asylum. And it takes serious advocacy for Lithuania or Poland to give these people some kind of legalization and documents. But the office is practically not doing that. There is no help for veterans, there is no help for the disabled, for people who came, having lost limbs and having lost their health, from Ukraine. What are you talking about? What kind of units can we even discuss with these people?

- Perhaps this is a good reason for other Belarusian structures to take this patronage on themselves. And is there anyone among these organizations who could do it? For one thing is a military matter. Another story is this communication of diplomats, everything that is connected with it.

- Absolutely. As I have already said, Belarusian organizations, including the civil campaign "European Belarus", helped Kalinowski's regiment, and I personally participated in it, looking for resources for this regiment when I had the opportunity. There are activists of other organizations, political prisoners who came out of prisons. There are veterans who fought in Ukraine, who know the situation with Belarusian volunteer associations very well.

There is someone to talk to. We need to talk to people whose goal is the liberation of Belarus. A real victory over this regime. And not with businessmen whose goal is just to go to Ukraine, make beautiful pictures, then show them to their Western sponsors and say: "You see, Zelensky met with us. So, we are really the only opposition that exists in this country today". Unfortunately, that's how it is today.

- Let's talk about what's happening in Belarus itself. Andriy Demchenko, the speaker of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, said that now there is not some additional accumulation of forces. Before that there were certain maneuvers, nuclear exercises on the territory of Belarus with the participation of Russian troops. But do you realize what is happening now in the military sense in the country itself, de facto politically occupied by the Russians?

- We do not observe any concentration of Russian troops on the territory of Belarus now, I mean a large number of military and heavy equipment. There is no such thing today. There is no serious activity on the border, Russian troops have not been moved closer to Ukraine, there are no field hospitals, no fuel depots. We do not see any major alarm signals today.

But by no means, of course, this does not mean that there is no threat from the territory of Belarus. We realize that as long as Gauleiter Lukashenko rules in Belarus, as aptly called the Belarusian dictator by the commander of Ukraine's UAV systems, Robert "Madyar" Brovdi, there will always be this threat.

So I really hope that after the words of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, as well as a number of experts, including the "Madyar" I mentioned, to Lukashenko and threats to immediately strike Belarusian enterprises, including the refineries in Mozyr and Novopolotsk, the dictator will still be cautious about even verbally threatening Ukraine.

Because we can see how his rhetoric changed when it was clearly stated what will be done by Ukraine in case of a repeated attack from the territory of Belarus.

- On the eve, Alexander Lukashenko and French leader Emmanuel Macron had a conversation. Those who de facto control the situation in Minsk say that it was the French side that initiated this conversation. Do you understand what the motivation is? Why would Macron talk to Lukashenko?"

- I think that Macron also warned Lukashenko about plans to attack both Ukraine and Lithuania, Latvia or Poland. Because we understand very well who has the nuclear potential in Europe today - it is France itself.

And today it essentially holds this nuclear umbrella over the countries of Europe. Because the United States, unfortunately, is extremely unpredictable today, and, of course, Europe is no longer expecting any support from U.S. President Donald Trump in case Russian dictator Vladimir Putin does decide to attack the same Baltic states. I think this is why the French president called Lukashenko.

I recall that after 2020, when Lukashenko fell into complete isolation, the French president also called him on February 26, 2022, that is, two days after Russian troops entered Ukraine, including from the territory of Belarus. At that time, Macron also warned Lukashenko and warned the Belarusian army against entering this war.

- But does it have a certain profit? Lukashenko and his entourage will use it for their propaganda. And what is the practical significance: was it worth it?

- Certainly, Belarusian propaganda used this call, claimed that it was evidence of some kind of legitimacy of Lukashenko. But this, in fact, is complete nonsense, no one believed it.

- It's quite clear why the French president called. It was taking place against the background of the Belarusian-Russian nuclear exercises, which took place on the territory of Belarus. And it is obvious that there were warnings in case Russia wanted to launch a missile with nuclear warheads from the territory of Belarus.

Now it is important to follow what will happen between the U.S. and Europe regarding the lifting of sanctions against the Belarusian regime, because recently there was an unofficial appeal of the U.S. State Department to Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine with a request to lift sanctions on Belarusian potash, which the U.S. would like to buy from Lukashenko's regime.

And here it is very important not to lift these sanctions, because it poses a direct threat to both the Baltic States and Ukraine. It is quite clear that the transportation of these potash fertilizers through the ports of Klaipeda, Gdansk or Odessa is beneficial to the American side today. And, of course, the Lukashenko regime itself. But it poses a direct threat to Ukraine itself and the EU countries. Sanctions cannot be lifted from the regime.