Belarus Opposition Candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya Releases Video Message After Arriving in Lithuania

Belarusian presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya released a video on her husband’s YouTube channel on August 11, after leaving the country following her election loss.

Tsikhanouskaya arrived in Lithuania on August 11, Tut.by reported.

Lithuania’s foreign minister, Linas Linkevicius, tweeted, “Svetlana Tikhanovskaya is safe. She is in Lithuania.”

“I made this decision completely on my own,” she said, according to a translation by TASS news agency. “I know that many will understand me, many will judge me, and many will hate me. But, you know, God forbid to face the choice I faced. So, people, take care of yourselves, please. Not a single life is worth what is going on now.”

Tikhanovskaya, who entered the election after her activist husband was arrested, earlier sent her children out of the country, the AP said. “Children are the most important [thing] in our life,” she says in the video.

Belarus’s Interior Ministry said that thousands of people were arrested at demonstrations following the reelection of President Alexander Lukashenko for his sixth term with an overwhelming majority. One person was reported to have been killed.

Tsikhanouskaya claims the vote was rigged. Credit: Страна для жизни/Country for Life via Storyful