Andrei Sannikov And Dzmitry Bandarenka Meet With EU Ambassadors
- 8.04.2025, 17:58
Strategy on Belarus discussed.
Leaders of the European Belarus Civil Campaign, Andrei Sannikov and Dzmitry Bandarenka, met with EU ambassadors and government representatives responsible for relations with Belarusian democratic forces from Estonia, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland. The main topic of discussion was the catastrophic situation in Belarus, which participants compared to a medieval Eastern despotism.
“The Lukashenka regime has crossed all boundaries of cruelty towards political prisoners. They are being killed, tortured, beaten, kept in solitary confinement for years, and deprived of contact with their families and loved ones.
For some reason, the speech by Charter'97 Editor-in-Chief Natallia Radzina at a conference in Berlin shocked the audience, even though she only briefly described the conditions of female political prisoners in Lukashenka’s prisons. The democratic world has quickly ‘grown tired’ of the issue of mass repression in Belarus.
This is exactly what Lukashenka has always strived for—to weaken international attention to the crimes against humanity committed by his regime against peaceful citizens.
The human rights situation in Belarus is critical, and urgent and effective measures, as well as pressure from Western countries, are needed to free thousands of political prisoners—essentially, to save their lives.
The discussion also covered the war waged by Putin against Ukraine and its current, extremely dangerous phase—not only for Ukraine but for Europe and, of course, for Belarus.
The course of the new U.S. administration in scaling back its support for Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity creates new serious challenges for Europe that require urgent and systematic responses.
New ideas and unconventional solutions are needed today. For example, the European Union could request that the Ukrainian leadership assign a four-star general, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces until February 2024, to help build a capable European army. There is likely no more experienced and knowledgeable military commander in the world today, with extensive combat experience. A Belarusian military unit could be formed within these European armed forces, consisting of Belarusians who have become citizens of European countries.
Free Belarus is a key geopolitical factor for Europe, European security, and Ukraine.
“Let’s not forget that it was the Belarusian 2020 revolution that prevented Putin from executing his plans to attack Europe using Belarusian territory—a plan that had been in preparation since the first large-scale Zapad-2009 military exercises,” Andrei Sannikov wrote on Facebook.