Belarus woman Maria Patskova stands on O’Connell Street in Limerick city holding an anti-war poster with a Russian couple Olga and Iurii Ivanov.
The group of three want Ireland and the rest of the world to know that not all Russians and Belarusians support the war in Ukraine.
Ms Patskova (30) said she is “ashamed” of her country which allowed itself to be used as a launchpad for Russian troops to invade Ukraine.
Ms Patskova who is a native of a town situated close to the Ukraine border, could not continue to live under the dictatorship of Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko who is a fierce ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
President Lukashenko told his defence ministry last Thursday that the Belarus army must support Russian troops by preventing attacks on them from the rear.
“It’s incomprehensible and unbelievable, and, as a Belarusian it is a shock because our president, who is not a legitimate president, we didn't choose him, and he is a dictator, and after all that Belarus has been through over the past two years, he has got us into a war that nobody in Belarus wants,” Ms Patskova said.
We feel ashamed and sad.
“Putin (has used) our country to get Russian troops into Ukraine, there are military vehicles going through our town into Ukraine, people can see them out of their windows, and that’s just...I can’t even describe how I feel about that, it’s outrageous,” she said.
“Belarusians fear that this (war) is seen by the world as Russia and Belarus invading the Ukraine, because that’s basically what’s happening; Belarus is being used by Russian troops to get through to get to Ukraine, and I don't know a single Belarusian who would support that, it’s something nobody wants in Belarus, and we feel ashamed and sad.”
Lukanshnko has not only enabled Putin’s war in Ukraine, he has in effect ceded control of Belarus to the Kremlin, according to exiled Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
Ms Tsikhanouskaya, who spent her childhood summers with a host family in Roscrea, Co Tipperary following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, was forced into exile by the Lukashenko regime, after she failed to oust him in the 2020 presidential elections, which were rigged in Lukashenko’s favour, it is claimed.
The election result sparked sustained mass anti-government demonstrations in which thousands of protestors were detained and beaten by Belarus police.
Ms Tskihanouskaya’s husband, Sergei Tikhanovsky, was jailed for 18 years by a Belarus court last December on charges of organising mass unrest against the Lukashenko regime.
Ms Patskova said she and others in Belarus feel guilty about the war in Ukraine: “It is very sad that over these two years we couldn't get rid of the dictator, everybody I know voted for Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and my family and my friends participated in all those protests in Belarus, but it wasn't enough and in a way we feel that the war in Ukraine is our fault too, because we didn't stop Lukashenko and he has now stolen power, and he has got our country into a war.”
Her family back home, along with her friends in Ukraine, tell her they are “very scared and all they are trying to do they are trying to stay safe”.
“One of my friends fled from Kyiv to a village nearby, and they were trying to stay in a shelter there, just trying to be safe, and the other one stayed in her flat in Kyiv, and she was just hoping to survive.”
Ms Patskova’s message to the people of Ukraine is: “I’m very deeply sorry for what our governments are doing to your country and I really hope they stop as soon as possible, and I’m very sorry for your losses and the pain and trauma you have been through.”
