If there is one thing that everybody seems to agree on, it is that Belarus is headed for a very hot spring season.
In a message posted on Telegram on February 22, opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya called on Belarusians to take to the streets for mass demonstrations on March 25, accusing the country’s strongman ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka of causing a “terrible crisis in Belarus.”
Tsikhanouskaya also called him “the main threat to the country’s independence” who was “trying to sell Belarus piece by piece in exchange for loans and support,” a clear reference to the USD 1.5 billion loan Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to Lukashenka during their recent meeting in Sochi.
A week later, Tsikhanouskaya predicted in an interview with Bild am Sonntag that pressure from the West will force the downfall of the Belarusian dictator. “Lukashenka’s regime will fall this year. I think he will leave in the spring,” she said.
Likewise, Pavel Latushko, a former Belarusian Culture Minister currently living in exile in Poland who is a leading member of the Belarus opposition’s Coordinating Council, told Deutsche Welle that a “decisive battle” was looming this spring and called on the West to impose tougher and more comprehensive sanctions against the Lukashenka regime.