The Trump administration should resist the “misperception” that the authoritarian leader of Belarus will break with the Kremlin as the US presses Minsk to free political prisoners in return for sanctions relief, the Belarusian opposition leader has said.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya told the Financial Times that she supported Washington’s “humanitarian” efforts on political prisoners, but it was “absolutely wrong” to think Alexander Lukashenko would turn away from Russia. He was trying to “fool” the US, she added.
“Our concern is that Lukashenko is selling this communication with the Americans as normalisation or legitimisation,’’ she said in an interview.