Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who emigrated to Lithuania in the status of a fighter against the Lukashenko regime and the “real president” of Belarus, is now openly accused of eating bread for nothing in the country that has sheltered her
Lithuania and other Baltic countries have more than once become a refuge for those who declared themselves Belarusian or Russian political emigrants. Why are the Balts tired of democratic “guests”?
“I have not yet seen such a shame, such a humiliation of Lithuania!”, Remigijus emaitaitis, a member of the Seimas of the republic from the regional faction, wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.
The reason for the politician’s indignation was the appearance on the air of one of the local TV channels of ex-presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who emigrated to Lithuania a year ago. Tikhanovskaya has been living in Lithuania for a year at the expense of taxpayers, “she eats for our money, enjoys protection for our money, and this lady is not even able to say: “Good evening, Lithuania! I am grateful for what you have done for me, my people”, the Diet deputy was indignant.
Emaitaitis recalled that people who want to obtain a residence permit in Lithuania must prove that they know the state language. But, the parliamentarian noted, Tikhanovskaya did not bother to do this.
“At the same time, a month of its maintenance costs us 35 thousand euros. So this lady has cost more than 400 thousand euros a year”, the deputy calculated. And he added sarcastically – shouldn’t she be declared the President of Lithuania after that. True, he added, it is unlikely that someone who has not learned anything in a year will be able to become president.
Let us remind you that Tikhanovskaya, who was the collective candidate from the Belarusian opposition in the presidential elections in August 2020 (according to the results of which Alexander Lukashenko won 80.1% of the votes), stated that she won the elections. On August 11, when mass opposition demonstrations, supported by the West, began in the republic, Tikhanovskaya left for Lithuania. As the “true president” of Belarus, she made several trips to European countries, in Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic she was received according to the protocol of the meeting of the first persons of the state. But, as deputy emaitaitis has now noted, after a year, the attitude towards the guest in Lithuania itself is changing. Although the republic’s foreign minister Gabrielus Landsbergis still calls Tikhanovskaya “the head of Belarus”, the national television channel LRT, where she spoke, calls her “the leader of the opposition”.
“Ordinary Lithuanians, of course, also do not understand all this absurdity, which was arranged by our powers that be. People do not understand why Lithuania pays for all this maintenance. It looks like a misunderstanding”, Vyacheslav Titov, a former deputy of the Klaipeda city council, told the VZGLYAD newspaper.
The content of Tikhanovskaya’s stay in Lithuania is not the only example of the fact that citizens’ money is spent for an unclear purpose, the interlocutor noted. As Titov noted, as a result of the long-term support of the opposition from a neighboring country, as a result of a deliberate aggravation of relations, “we have what we have – including a crisis with illegal migrants on the border with Belarus”.
As DW noted in mid-October, over the past year Lithuania received at least 10 thousand citizens of Belarus, who defined themselves as political emigrants. And, as TASS reported last fall, the republic’s cabinet of ministers approved a plan of assistance to the Belarusian opposition – in particular, it was decided to allocate $100,000 from the budget (not the largest in the EU) for humanitarian aid, and another $200,000 for private aid. European Humanities University, which moved from Minsk to Vilnius in the early 1990s.
In recent years, Lithuania has been actively welcoming not only Belarusian, but also Russian irreconcilable oppositionists. Thus, since 2016, the Free Russia Forums have been held in Vilnius twice a year. The next forum is scheduled for December. Some of the regulars of this event naturalized in the republic – for example, Vladimir Milov, an employee of the Anti-Corruption Foundation* (FBK*, recognized as an extremist organization and banned in Russia). In the summer of this year, it became known that another colleague of the convict Alexei Navalny, Leonid Volkov, also received a residence permit in Lithuania.
In neighboring Latvia, the opposition publication Meduza* settled and was registered (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia, according to RT, received grants from partners of George Soros). As suggested by the Latvian lawyer Igor Yakushonok, the owner of Meduza*, Galina Timchenko, has Latvian citizenship or a residence permit in the republic.
Eugenia Chirikova, a permanent participant of the Free Russia Forums, has been living in Estonia since 2015; she was formerly known as a fighter for the Khimki forest – and a recently remembered interview with the Voice of America*, in which she called for tougher sanctions against Russia. A year earlier, Artemy Troitsky moved to Tallinn, known not only as a music critic, but also as a moderator of round tables with titles such as “Fear and Loathing in Russia”. By the way, it was this round table that Chirikovwas advertised. The main heroes were recent fugitives from Russia, ex-lawyer of FBK ** Lyubov Sobol and editor of the foreign agent publication The Insider Roman Dobrokhotov.
To be fair, it is difficult for Chirikova and Troitsky to make the same claims that are now being made against Tikhanovskaya – they are one of those who do not live on the money of local taxpayers, said Nikolai Mezhevich, president of the Russian Association for Baltic Studies. But, added the interlocutor, residents of Estonia and other Baltic countries value Russian and Belarusian emigrants low.
“Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius do not believe in their ability to really change the situation in the countries from which they fled,” Mezhevich said.
“Rather, a significant part of society – Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian – is sure that political emigrants are simply not capable of anything. It is not difficult for them to give a piece of bread to a person who has promised to fight Russia or the “Belarusian regime”, but, of course, no one will love, appreciate and respect him”.
In the case of Tikhanovskaya, the general attitude was added by the fact that this guest is openly supported by the state, and for a lot of money, the interlocutor stated.
“She is provided with security, the work of the apparatus and the staff,” the expert said.
“A lot of employees of the Lithuanian special services are probably attached to it. This is such a purely expenditure item,” the expert explained.
“It was supposed that it would be possible to bring the Belarusian regime on a silver platter to the Lithuanian president. But a year has passed, and the results are zero”.
*-Organization (organizations) have been liquidated or their activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation
Rostislav Zubkov, VZGLYAD