Belarusian Nobel Laureate Alexievich Says Lukashenka's Actions Over Ukraine A 'Crime'

MINSK -- Belarusian writer, Nobel laureate, and opposition figure Svetlana Alexievich says Belarus is no longer independent and has become "an aggressor nation."

In an interview with RFE/RL published on March 4, Alexievich said Alyaksandr Lukashenka's decision to support Russian President Vladimir Putin and allow Belarusian territory to be used by Russian troops invading Ukraine was "a crime."

Lukashenka has maintained his grip on Belarus since massive protests followed a flawed presidential election in 2020 with Putin's support.

The cooperation has been accompanied by signs that Moscow has increased pressure to implement military and other aspects of an agreement concluded in the 1990s on a joint "union state."

Tens of thousands of Russian troops remained in southern Belarus near the border with Ukraine after the scheduled end of joint Russia-Belarus military exercises before invading following Putin's launch of the all-out attack on February 24.

Lukashenka has publicly insisted that Belarusian troops are not participating in the invasion.

"In accordance with the laws of wartime, providing a territory for an aggressor country is nothing but complicity in a crime," Alexievich said.

She called Ukrainians and Belarusians who joined them in the fight against Russian troops "heroes."

Alexievich said that if Belarusian soldiers are sent to Ukraine to assist Russia to fight against Ukrainian forces, "heroism for them will be not to shoot."

"Those people who were brought up by their Soviet parents, taught by Soviet teachers on Soviet textbooks, are now Soviet people.... The romanticism of slavery is still living in the people who do not have anything, who are victims themselves, talk about the pain they are in, but still are confident that 'we used to be great.' That is what lives in them," Alexievich said.

Borrowing a phrase from Russian writer Anton Chekhov, she said it will take a long time "to squeeze the Soviet slave from someone."

Alexievich called the war in Ukraine an indication that the former communist mentality among many people in Russia and Belarus has not been eradicated.

"Now we see that we were so naive and romantic in times of 'perestroika,'" Alexievich said. "We thought and kept saying that people were disappointed with communism, that we managed to deal with it with a peaceful revolution. Now, it turns out that we did not overcome communism. We never prevailed."

She called Putin's order to put Russia's nuclear weapons on high alert an indication of "an insane" person who "absolutely recklessly is talking about nuclear weapons."

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The 73-year-old Alexievich, whose father was Belarusian and mother was Ukrainian, was born in Ukraine.