Svetlana Tikhanovskaya Wanted on the Russian Territory

According to the database of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the leader of the Belarusian opposition “is wanted under the article of the Criminal Code.” No criminal case against Tikhanovskaya is initiated by Russian law enforcement agencies. One of the opposition leaders in Belarus, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, was put on a wanted list in Russia, according to the database of the Russian Interior Ministry as of Wednesday, October 7. According to a document published on the agency’s website, citizen Svetlana Georgievna Tikhanovskaya, born in 1982, “is wanted under the Criminal Code”. No details of the charge against Tikhanovskaya are specified. An informed source in an interview with Interfax explained that putting Tikhanovskaya in the search base of the Russian Interior Ministry is a technical aspect of Russia-Belarus interaction within the framework of the union state. “As part of interaction between the allied states, information about Tikhanovskaya is added in a common database,” he said, noting that Russian law enforcement agencies did not initiate a criminal case against the Belarusian oppositionist. Leader of the opposition in Belarus Tikhanovskaya took part in the presidential elections in Belarus after the CEC refused to register the initiative group of her husband Sergei Tikhanovsky, who was later detained during a picket to collect signatures to nominate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in Grodno. According to the official voting results, Tikhanovskaya lost the election, gaining just over 10 percent of the vote, and Alexander Lukashenko, who has been head of state since 1994, won. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya did not agree with the official election results and filed a complaint with the CEC. On August 11, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius announced that Tihanovskaya was on the territory of his country. The confidant of the oppositionist Olga Kovalkova said that Tikhanovskaya was taken out of the country by the Belarusian authorities, and she had no other choice. A number of EU countries recognized Tikhanovskaya as the leader of the opposition forces in Belarus. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have already met with her.