Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya described those affected by the drone strike on a bus in Russia’s Bryansk Region as innocent victims and placed responsibility for the situation on Russia, arguing that it was Russia that started the war.
“My heart is with all those injured and their families. The children and the adults who were with them are innocent victims,” Tsikhanouskaya said.
She placed responsibility for the incident on Russia as the aggressor, as well as on state officials who sent the children through a dangerous area.
“Russia started this war. It is the aggressor, and it bears the primary responsibility for every death and every injury connected with this war. But those state officials who irresponsibly sent children through a border area affected by military operations are also to blame.
This was not an ‘accident’ but a specific decision made by specific people in power who showed indifference to how the children would travel to their holiday destination. The Belarusian state propaganda machine is also guilty. For years it has concealed the truth about the war and the Lukashenka regime’s complicity in it in order to create a false image of a ‘peaceful sky’ and safety,” Tsikhanouskaya said.
Tsikhanouskaya urged Belarusians to take care of themselves and their loved ones and not to travel to Russia.
“Safety will come only when Russia ends this war,” she stressed.
As previously reported, a bus carrying 44 passengers, including 28 children, came under a drone strike in Bryansk Region on June 17. The Russian Investigative Committee said the drone was Ukrainian.
The bus was carrying a children’s football team from Rechytsa Youth Sports School No. 2 to Gelendzhik for a holiday trip. A woman accompanying the team was killed in the strike. Seven people, including five children, were hospitalised with shrapnel injuries. One child remains in serious condition.
