Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is visiting Strasbourg this week for a series of high-level diplomatic engagements on the sidelines of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, running February 24–26.
During the visit, Tsikhanouskaya is meeting with Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset, as well as the secretary generals of both the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. She will also deliver a presentation to ambassadors of the Committee of Ministers and attend an event organized by the European Union delegation.
On Wednesday, she participated in a ceremony marking the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — a symbolic moment given Belarus’s role as a staging ground for Russian forces at the outset of the war.
The trip was announced by her representative, Ana Krasulina.
Tsikhanouskaya, who fled Belarus following the disputed 2020 presidential election in which she ran against Alexander Lukashenko, has continued to lead the Belarusian democratic opposition from abroad. She currently resides in Warsaw, Poland, having relocated from Lithuania after responsibility for her protection was transferred from the Lithuanian Dignity Protection Service to the Polish police.
Her continued engagement with European institutions underscores the opposition-in-exile’s strategy of maintaining international pressure on the Lukashenko regime and keeping Belarus’s democratic aspirations on the European political agenda.
