An adviser to the Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has said she wrote to Lithuania’s prime minister about her security arrangements before relocating from Vilnius to Warsaw, but received no response.
Dzianis Kuchynski said Tsikhanouskaya had sought a compromise over the level of state protection after Lithuania downgraded her security at the end of last year.
“We were looking for a compromise. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya wrote to the prime minister, but we did not get a response [...] We tried to arrange a meeting, but somehow it did not work out,” he said in an interview with the Lrytas news website on Thursday.
Kuchynski said her team had held numerous meetings with Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry and the presidential office, and praised the ministry for providing diplomatic support.
“Our proposal was to scale it down – for example, instead of two officers, there could be one, as is the case for former Lithuanian presidents, and that there would be no need to travel abroad,” he said.
He added that by the end of the year Tsikhanouskaya had been informed that, if necessary, she could contact the regular criminal police, while other forms of state protection had been withdrawn.
Lithuanian authorities transferred responsibility for Tsikhanouskaya's security from the Dignitary Protection Service to the police at the end of 2025, saying the move reflected a reduced threat level. Critics argued it amounted to a downgrading of her status.
Nevertheless, Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė’s spokesman, Ignas Dobrovolskas, said Tsikhanouskaya's letter had been received and that communication had continued.
“The letter was received and addressed the level of protection. Communication with Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s team was maintained. The government relied on recommendations from the services, which, after assessing the threat level, determined what level of protection was necessary,” he said.
Tsikhanouskaya began working from Warsaw last week, where her office is due to open shortly. Her team has said the Vilnius office will remain in place and retain its diplomatic accreditation.
She ran against Belarus’s long-serving president, Alexander Lukashenko, in the disputed 2020 election. Though Lukashenko declared victory, the opposition maintained that Tsikhanouskaya had in fact won the vote.
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