DISINFO: Juan Guaido and Svetlana Tikhanovskaya are American and Western puppets
SUMMARY
Juan Guaido and Svetlana Tikhanovskaya are American and Western puppets.
RESPONSE
The article repeats a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative according to which leaders of protest movements against authoritarian regimes are portrayed as US/Western stooges and tools of Western-sponsored “colour revolutions”.
Neither Juan Guaido nor Svetlana Tikhanovskaya are “American/Western puppets”. They are independent actors that have led protest movements in their own countries.
Juan Guaido is the President of the National Assembly of Venezuela who stepped in as an interim president on the basis of the Venezuelan Constitution, after the mass protests in the country following the Presidential election. Juan Guaido was recognised as the interim president of Venezuela by at least 47 countries, against 14 which expressed their ongoing support for Nicolas Maduro.
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Belarusian opposition leader appealed to EU leaders to disregard the results of the election on 9th of August, calling them fraudulent. In the statement issued from Lithuania, where she is exiled, she asked to support the awakening of Belarus. Tikhanovskaya claimed the election results were falsified and protesters had been beaten and tortured.
The protests in Belarus erupted after the results of the presidential election in Belarus on the 9th of August, which are considered fraudulent by a large part of Belarusian society.
The European Council condemned ,on 19 August 2020, the violence against peaceful protesters and announced that it would soon adopt a list of sanctions for those responsible for violence in Belarus. “As the elections in Belarus were neither free nor fair, and did not meet international standards, the EU does not recognise the results presented by the Belarus authorities” stated a European Council press release.
On the 2nd of October 2020 the EU imposed restrictive measures against 40 individuals identified as responsible for repression and intimidation against peaceful demonstrators, opposition members and journalists in the wake of the 2020 presidential election in Belarus, as well as for misconduct of the electoral process.
On the 4th of November EU approved sanctions against a second list of 15 Belarusian officials, including President Alexander Lukashenko, accused of election fraud and repression.
Read similar cases claiming that far-right US stooge Guaido has low support in Venezuela and that Tikhanovskaya is controlled by foreign puppeteers, primarily Lithuanian ones.