In remarks published on the YouTube channel of Ukrainian opposition blogger Anatoly Shariy yesterday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova pointedly referenced the lavish lifestyle and fancy foreign trips made by Sviatlana Tsikhanoukaya, Belarusian “opposition leader,” who holds no government post, runs no NGO, and has no other official position, yet has apparently been granted “a special status” by the West. TASS reported Zakharova as saying. “In some countries they have stopped short of recognizing her as head of state…. Such attention to Tsikhanouskaya, such huge financing. I can’t even imagine how much is spent on these news conferences, talks.”
Last week in Washington, Tsikhanouskaya got the royal treatment, meeting with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland and USAID director Samantha Power, among others, presenting her hosts with lists of Belarusian targets she wants the U.S. to sanction. With some irony, Zakharova wondered why all the “Western advocates of human rights, democracy, liberalism, freedom of opinion and freedom of peace,” wouldn’t also want to lavish attention on “well-known Ukrainian oppositionist” Anatoly Shariy. Surely Blinken, Nuland, and Power, et al. would want to “discuss with him in-depth how and where to lead Ukraine” or “exchange views about Ukraine’s future.” But, apparently they prefer Tsikhanouskaya.
