On July 28, United States President Joseph Biden held a 15-minute face-to-face talk with Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who many in the West consider to be the leader of Belarusian opposition. The opposition-minded media outlets and social networks conveyed a sense of triumph. Indeed, since the August 2020 elections, Tsikhanouskaya has met with 31 presidents and prime ministers, whereas President Alexander Lukashenko sat down with only 4 world leaders since his own reelection. “That this meeting will take place was kept in secrecy until the last moment,” Franak Viachorka, Tsikhanouskaya’s principal advisor, wrote jubilantly. She “was greeted at the White House as a national leader… From the Willard Hotel, where the presidents usually stay […] Tsikhanouskaya was accompanied by members of the diplomatic security service”.
OP-ED
Grigory Ioffe: The fate of the Belarusian opposition
Belarus opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya speaks to the media in Downing street in central London after a meeting with Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Aug. 3, 2021.
