Sawt Falasteen - Belarus opposition leader fears her country could become Putin's 'consolation prize'

Tikhanovskaya said it was crucial for Ukraine to win its battle but that Belarus, a close ally of Moscow under current leader President Alexander Lukashenko, should not be sacrificed.

"It is important for us that Europe represents the Belarusian voice during these negotiations as well, that we don't separate the Ukrainian and Belarusian case, that Belarus is not given as a consolation prize to Putin," she said on the sidelines of a visit to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.

Ukrainian and US negotiators held fresh talks in Geneva on Thursday on efforts to end Russia's invasion, now into a fifth year. Further Ukraine-Russia-US talks could be held in Abu Dhabi in March, according to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Russia is demanding Ukraine pull its troops out of territory Kyiv's army still controls -- a proposal Zelensky has rejected -- and said there is no deadline for ending the conflict.

Tikhanovskaya said that if Russia succeeded with its conditions, "it will keep the status quo in Belarus for decades, and Belarus can be used as a launching pad, as a place for escalating deployment of different types of weapons, threatening, blackmailing (its) neighbours for years and years ahead".

Russia used Belarusian territory to launch its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, announced in December that Russian ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons had been stationed in his country.

Tikhanovskaya, now 43, stood against Lukashenko in a 2020 presidential election that the opposition say she won.

Official results however awarded the victory to Lukashenko, triggering major demonstrations and a brutal crackdown, forcing Tikhanovskaya into exile.

- 'Strong cards' -

Tikhanovskaya originally went to Lithuania but confirmed that she is moving to Warsaw.

Lithuanian officials lowered her security status last year and several of the opposition leader's associates said the Belarus government had made threats.

"I personally lived in Vilnius for five years. Honestly I was always sure that the next city I would move from Vilnius would be Minsk. But the situation is like it is," she said.

She now campaigns for the estimated 1,200 political prisoners in Belarus while planning for ways to change the country, and also jointly works with the Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog that counts 46 countries as members.

She would like the European Union to toughen its sanctions against Lukashenko's government over its role in the Ukraine war.

"I want to explain to the Europeans that they have such strong cards... to help us to release the country," said Tikhanovskaya.

The Belarus people want to be "European", she added, while admitting that its 30 years under Lukashenko's rule would make it difficult to quickly gain EU membership.

"A huge shift took place in minds of the people" with the 2020 demonstrations, she said.

"It's impossible to turn this page of our history. Belarusians will never think like slaves, like we were before 2020. It was really a revolution of the mind."

Y.AlMasri--SF-PST