A Response to Critics
- Pavel Latushka
- Apr 30
- 7 min read
We are living in unprecedented times. More than five years of the most grueling struggle have passed since 2020, and today we face a new — and perhaps the most insidious — test. It is not new threats or new articles of the criminal code. It is a test of our political will and our memory. The regime and its hidden lobbyists have launched a large-scale demoralization campaign. They are trying to infect us with the virus of "pragmatic capitulation," disguising it as concern for people.
Today I want to break down this hybrid trap in detail, step by step. I will name seven key myths — seven poisoned narratives that are being actively planted right now into the minds of Belarusians and even into the offices of European politicians. Our task is to expose this anatomy of lies.
Myth 1. "Pressure harms the people, not the regime"
Day after day we are told: "Your sanctions are hitting ordinary Belarusians! People are suffering, they cannot get visas, they cannot travel to Europe. You are fighting not Lukashenko, but Belarus."
This is a brazen attempt to shift responsibility from the executioner onto those who are trying to stop the violence.
It is not the sanctions of the democratic world that imprison people for internet comments.
It is not we who cancel consular services abroad, stripping Belarusians of their passports.
It is not we who close borders, artificially creating migration crises and turning the country into a military staging ground.
Western pressure is a response to Lukashenko's terror. Those who claim that lifting sanctions will ease the lives of the people are lying. Lifting pressure without political concessions from the dictatorship will only fund the repressive apparatus. The dictator will receive money to continue his aggressive policies, while Belarusians will remain in the same prison — only with the illusion of an open window.
Myth 2. "Negotiations and dialogue are more effective than pressure"
The second narrative flows smoothly from the first: "Look — talks with Lukashenko yield more results than years of your uncompromising struggle abroad. There is an alternative, and it works!" We are asked to believe that the dictatorship has suddenly become open to negotiation. But let us be honest: what is being sold to us as "pragmatic agreements" is blackmail. The regime artificially creates a crisis — seizes political prisoners, drives migrants to EU borders, rattles weapons — and then demands political and economic concessions in exchange for temporarily lowering the level of madness.
The artificial juxtaposition of "effective negotiations" against "useless pressure" is a classic technique to reduce our actual strategy — pressure plus negotiations — to a caricature and discredit it. Dialogue with a terrorist holding a gun to a hostage's head is not diplomacy. Fully legitimizing a strategy of negotiations without pressure only convinces the regime that blackmail works — which is precisely why pressure is a necessary precondition for any negotiations with the regime. We are not saying that pressure is purposeless or aimed at abstract outcomes such as the regime spontaneously collapsing under the weight of sanctions, as our opponents attempt — by substituting concepts — to put in our mouths. Pressure has a concrete goal: a complete change of policy on the part of the regime, and as a result, a Round Table between representatives of the democratic part of society and representatives of the regime, to be followed by genuine political change.
Moreover, former political prisoners themselves refute the claim that pressure is useless. Upon leaving the regime's dungeons, one after another they say they were freed precisely because of sanctions. Their freedom was exchanged for the sanctions that we systematically worked to secure.
Myth 3. "Humanitarian logic supersedes political logic"
This is the most painful and cynical argument. We are told: "Human fates matter more than political status. One must negotiate with the devil on any terms, as long as people are released." Every political prisoner who walks free is cause for immense joy. We fight with all our strength for their salvation. But the substitution of concepts here lies in the attempt to shift the conflict from the political plane to the humanitarian one.
We are being invited to play by the captor's rules:
The regime takes thousands of innocent people hostage.
Then it "graciously" releases hundreds in exchange for the easing of sanctions or recognition.
Meanwhile, the repression machine does not stop for a single moment, accumulating a new "exchange fund."
If we accept this logic, we will be held hostage forever. The true humanitarian solution is to break the repression machine itself, to restore law and justice — not to buy freedom tickets for the chosen few. Without stopping the carousel of arrests, releases, and new arrests, we will achieve no qualitative change in the situation.
Myth 4. "Concrete cases of release matter more than systemic pressure"
We are told: "More people have been freed through a few months of behind-the-scenes maneuvering than through years of your struggle abroad!" The emphasis is placed on targeted, short-term results as opposed to a long-term strategy, which is declared ineffective and failed — and the struggle itself dismissed as fictitious and not genuine.
This is a classic manipulation. Focusing on the regime's tactical concessions — such as the release of several prominent figures or a partial amnesty — forces us to close our eyes to a catastrophic reality. While we applaud targeted releases, the country continues to destroy the remnants of civil society, rewrite history, surrender sovereignty, and build the foundations of totalitarianism in Belarus.
Furthermore, even those who have been freed are not rehabilitated. Political prisoners are expelled from the country en masse, without the right to return, without amnesty — and in some cases new criminal cases are opened against them in Belarus.
Abandoning systemic pressure in favor of short-term deals is a betrayal of those who remain in prison and of those who dream of a free Belarus — not an endless cycle of arrests and ransoms.
Myth 5. "Normalization is inevitable; the thaw is already on the horizon"
In the speeches of so-called "pragmatists," we see an attempt to create a sense of predetermination: "Europe is tired. Everyone will return to working relations regardless. Isolation is temporary".
This narrative is designed to break our resistance. We are being made to feel that the struggle is lost, and that we must hurry to take a seat at the negotiating table on the dictator's terms.
But this "thaw" exists only in the minds of those who wish to preserve their status quo at any cost. There is nothing inevitable about forgiving crimes against humanity. Our task is to remind the world that "business as usual" with a regime that is complicit in war and terrorizes its own people is simply not possible.
Myth 6. "External third-party forces are obstructing our reconciliation"
When "pragmatic dialogue" falters, the regime's lobbyists need someone to blame. And so accusations are leveled at third countries. It is claimed, for instance, that "Ukraine is deliberately running information operations to prevent Belarus from reconciling with the West."
This is not merely a lie — it is a carbon copy of Russian and Lukashenko propaganda.
It is not Ukraine's fault — Ukraine, whose cities were struck by missiles launched from our soil.
It is not the fault of EU member state governments, which are trying to protect their borders from hybrid attacks.
The fault lies exclusively with the regime, which has turned Belarus into a source of regional instability.
To attribute the lack of progress in relations with Europe to the "interference of third parties" is to refuse to acknowledge the root of the problem: dictatorship is incompatible with mutually beneficial, peaceful neighborliness. Europe became peaceful and united only when it rid itself of dictatorial regimes from its war-ravaged body.
Myth 7. "Democratic forces and advocates of pressure are out-of-touch lunatics"
And finally, to clear the path to capitulation once and for all, those who hold principled positions must be discredited. We are called "figures detached from reality," for whom "the preservation of their own status matters more than people."
We are being portrayed as radicals simply because we refuse to call black white.
Is it madness to demand the withdrawal of foreign troops from our territory?
Is it irrational to insist on the release of ALL political prisoners and the complete cessation of repression?
Is it politicking to say that without free and fair elections there will be neither stability nor sovereignty?
This is not radicalism. It is the only healthy, politically mature way of seeing things. Those who accuse us of "unwillingness to see the benefits" actually want to make themselves comfortable in a prison cell — not for themselves, of course. We, on the other hand, want to demolish the prison itself.
Our Strategy: Consistency and Principle
One must not allow oneself to be deceived. All of these narratives are links in a single chain, whose purpose is to make us surrender — to convince the world that the regime has become "normal" and amenable to negotiation, that it is genuinely making concessions, and to sell our freedom in exchange for a promise of illusory stability.
What do we set against this deception?
Smart and firm pressure. Sanctions must strike at the pillars of the regime — its beneficiaries, and the enterprises that sponsor war and terror. At the same time, we must demand from Europe maximum support for Belarusian mobility: visa issuance, scholarships, support for independent media and business. We distinguish between the regime and the people. We have never proposed, and do not propose, measures directed against Belarusian society or Belarusian citizens.
Rejection of endless hostage trading. The basic condition for any negotiations on large-scale sanctions relief is the full release and rehabilitation of all political prisoners and the complete cessation of repression.
Defense of sovereignty. No "thawing" of relations is possible as long as Belarus remains under Russia's creeping occupation and is a direct accomplice in aggression against its neighbors.
We understand the exhaustion of society. But capitulation will bring no relief — it will bring only new repression, occurring in silence, with the tacit consent of a "pragmatic" world.
We harbor no illusions: the road to a normal, free Belarus has turned out to be a marathon, not a sprint. For a long time we were told that it was a dead end. But we simply stopped watching the clock and listening to "pragmatic" advisers, and instead began to read the map more carefully. And we will not leave the route until we get home.
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