DISINFO: Tsikhanouskaya’s participation in an EU Council meeting is interference in Belarus’s affairs
SUMMARY
The participation of the former presidential candidate in the Belarusian elections, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, in the meeting of EU foreign ministers indicates that Brussels has pulled away from its announcement about its lack of intention to interfere in the internal affairs of Belarus.
RESPONSE
This is part of an ongoing Russian disinformation campaign about post-electoral protests in Belarus, portraying demonstrations against president Alexander Lukashenko as Western-led. EU foreign ministers met Tikhanovskaya before a European Council meeting designed to discuss the situation in Belarus and the sanctioning of 40 Belarusian officials. The protests in Belarus erupted to contest the results of the presidential election on the 9th of August, which are considered fraudulent by a large part of Belarusian society. The European Union has also stated that the elections were neither free nor fair. Read similar disinformation cases claiming that “the United States is behind the protests in Belarus”, that "Belarusian protests are managed from the US, Poland, Lithuania, and Czechia" and that Interference in Belarus follows a similar model to the one used in Venezuela