Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto on Monday became the first senior official from a European Union country to visit Belarus since Belarus’s authoritarian regime imposed a harsh crackdown on the opposition in 2020.
His trip came as the EU is expected to consider a new sanctions package against Belarus. The EU has already imposed a series of sanctions on the country, both for the crackdown following mass protests against the 2020 presidential election – widely considered rigged – and for Belarus’ hosting of Russian troops during the war in Ukraine .
Belarusian political analyst Valery Karbalevich said that as a result of the sanctions Minsk was experiencing “enormous” difficulties with the export of potash fertilizers – a key source of revenue – and petroleum products.
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“And the continuation of the war (in Ukraine) is tightening the economic knot around Belarus’ neck,” Karbalevich said. “The Belarusian authorities are doing their best to ease this pressure.”
Belarus has not deployed troops to Ukraine, but Russian soldiers stationed there have crossed the border into northern Ukraine.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto was the first European Union representative to visit Belarus following the crackdown on the opposition by the Lukashenko regime in 2020.
After the 2020 elections that gave authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko a new term, massive protests erupted and continued for weeks, the largest and most prolonged wave of unrest since Lukashenko came to power in 1994.
It sparked a brutal crackdown on protesters; more than 35,000 people were arrested and thousands were beaten by police. Among those arrested was human rights activist Ales Bialiatski, one of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winners. He is on trial and faces 12 years in prison if convicted.
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Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who ran against Lukashenko in 2020 and fled the country just days after the election, condemned Szijjarto’s visit.
“At a time when a Nobel laureate is being tried, journalists are being tortured, Russian soldiers are being trained before going to fight in Ukraine, such actions are unacceptable,” he said.
In closing remarks at his closed-door trial, Bialiatski said on Monday that Lukashenko made “a political decision to crush and destroy Belarus’ civil society,” according to the Viasna human rights center he founded.
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Bialiatski and two other Viasna figures are accused of tax evasion, smuggling and financing activities that undermine public order, charges related to the payment of legal fees of people he considers political prisoners.
