Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and her team will leave Lithuania — her home in exile since a giant crackdown forced her to flee Belarus in 2020 — for neighboring Poland, several people in her team told AFP.
Her move will come after Lithuania lowered her security status last year, rattling the team, which has questioned its welcome in the EU country.
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Tikhanovskaya ran against President Alexander Lukashenko in a 2020 election, with the opposition saying she was the real winner of the vote.
Belarus, ruled by Lukashenko since 1994, suppressed the protests, arresting thousands and forcing tens of thousands into exile.
Most fled to Belarus’s neighbours, Poland and Lithuania — with the opposition choosing Vilnius as its base.
Tikhanovskaya’s team has reported increased threats from Minsk’s KGB security services since Lithuania lowered the security status in October.
She will relocate with her team to Warsaw in the near future, four people in her entourage and a source in the Polish foreign ministry told AFP.
Her aide, Denis Kuchinsky, told journalists that Tikhanovskaya’s husband, Sergei Tikhanovsky — released from prison last year — was currently in the US for security reasons.
Tikhanovskaya met with Poland’s President Karol Nawrocki in Warsaw this week.
The news of her upcoming move came as Lithuania also said this month it would review the residence permit of Russian opposition figure Leonid Volkov — a key ally of late Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny — after his private messages were leaked.
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