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Belarus independence 'under threat' by Russian troops: opposition
Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenka allowed his country to be used as a staging ground/springboard for Russian attecks on Ukraine from the north.
The West must also now impose crushing sanctions on the Lukashenka regime and the Belarus economy.
![iu](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fusaherald.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F08%2F200810065321-svetlana-tikhanovskaya-0810-exlarge-169-300x168.jpg&f=1&nofb=1)
2.23.22
The presence of tens of thousands of Russian troops inside Belarus, which the West fears could be used to invade Ukraine, represents a threat to Belarusian independence, the country's exiled opposition leader said Wednesday.
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who the West believes was the true winner of August 2020 presidential elections that kept autocratic leader Alexander Lukashenko in power, told Agence France-Presse that her country now needed to fight "for our independence" as well as "against dictatorship". She also expressed horror that a referendum in Belarus this weekend could give Lukashenko the legal means to house Russian nuclear weapons in the country. Lukashenko was prepared to sacrifice the country's sovereignty because he was "grateful" for the Kremlin's support in the aftermath of the 2020 vote that prompted mass protests, said Tikhanovskaya, who now lives in Lithuania. "We want to be friends with our neighbours but we do not want to be the appendix of another country," she said during a visit to Paris. "We see that our independence now is under threat... We see the threat of a slow occupation of our country."
Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenka allowed his country to be used as a staging ground/springboard for Russian attecks on Ukraine from the north.
The West must also now impose crushing sanctions on the Lukashenka regime and the Belarus economy.