The attempt to ‘kidnap’ an Olympic sprinter and the suspicious death of an activist are signs of growing oppression
It is a fraught and dangerous time to be a Belarusian activist or dissident abroad, where the scrambling of a MiG-29 to ground a Ryanair plane, the abortive “kidnapping” of an Olympic sprinter and a possible “murder disguised as suicide” in Ukraine have been met darkly by the growing community of Belarusian exiles.
“Considering the events in Kyiv, I want to tell people that I have no suicidal tendencies,” wrote Andrej Stryzhak, a Belarusian activist currently in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, in a post on Facebook last week. “We have heightened our security measures and no matter what situation develops, we will continue our work.”