Since the August 2020 protests which marked the bloodiest chapter of Belarusian history since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the geopolitical landscape of Europe has drastically changed. Now, Belarus is viewed by the West as a military district of Russia, not a sovereign state. To represent the Belarusian resistance movement and counter Russia’s influence in the country, the opposition forces have set up institutions in exile. Its aim is to give the people of Belarus a hope for a different future and the world an opportunity to support forces uniting against Lukashenka.

This webinar will gather politicians and experts to discuss the current state of affairs in Belarus and its international position in the context of the war in Ukraine, Western sanctions, and the increasingly totalitarian political regime.

The event will be moderated by Charlotte Flindt Pedersen, Director of the Danish Foreign Policy Society.

Participants:

Pavel Latushko is a Belarusian politician and diplomat. Following the fraudulent presidential elections in 2020, Pavel Latushka became the head of National Anti-Crisis Management, a shadow government created by the Belarusian Coordination Council for the peaceful transition of power. On 9 August 2022, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya presented the United Transitional Cabinet in which Latushko is the responsible person for the transition of power. In March, a Belarusian court sentenced him in absentia to 18 years of imprisonment.

Margo Vorykhava is president of the Belarusian National Youth Council RADA. It is a voluntary union of 38 youth associations which was created with the purpose of consolidating the youth organizations and initiatives of Belarus. RADA operates in the areas of representation, promotion, and defending common interests and freedoms of young people in Belarus. Margo Vorykhava is also a member of the Council of Europe’s Contact Group on Belarus, working to foster cooperation with democratic forces and civil society in the country.

Mogens Blicher Bjerregård is a Danish journalist. From 1999 to 2015, he was Chairman of the Danish Association of Journalists. Since 2013, he has been Chairman of the European Federation of Journalists.

About the Belarus Research Network for Neighborhood Policy:

This is the second webinar of the Belarus Research Network for Neighborhood Policy.

Since the belligerent occupation of Belarus in February 2022, which coincided with onset of the war in neighboring Ukraine, the question of how to support the civil society of Belarus and ensure the return of the country to a sovereign, democratic status is ever-more pertinent. The Belarus Research Network on Neighborhood Policy aims to: Inform local and regional policymakers on key policy issues of importance to Belarus; Produce facts-based debate on relevant topics for the development and understanding of Belarus; Inform a wider audience about the developments in Belarus and ensure that a democratic Belarus remains one of the priorities on the regional agenda; Establish a network of experts on Belarus across the Nordic and Baltic countries. This project has been organized by a consortium of three partners from Latvia (the Latvian Institute of International Affairs), Denmark (the Danish Foreign Policy Society) and Lithuania (the Center for Belarus and Regional Studies at the European Humanities University).

For registration, please click here