{"id":517683,"date":"2026-02-15T17:17:46","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T14:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=517683"},"modified":"2026-02-15T18:34:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T15:34:49","slug":"tsikhanouskaya-urges-eu-not-to-follow-us-example-in-lifting-sanctions-on-belarus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/tsikhanouskaya-urges-eu-not-to-follow-us-example-in-lifting-sanctions-on-belarus","title":{"rendered":"Tsikhanouskaya Urges EU Not to Follow US Example in Lifting Sanctions on Belarus"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Head of the United Transitional Cabinet <b>Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya<\/b> has urged the European Union not to replicate the US approach of easing sanctions on Belarus in exchange for the release of political prisoners. In an interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/munich-security-conference-2026-live-updates\/\">Politico<\/a>, she said sanctions remain <i>\u201cvery important and effective instruments\u201d<\/i> capable of changing the regime\u2019s behaviour.<\/p>\n<p>According to her, the more <i>\u201ctransactional\u201d<\/i> American approach has its advantages, but this should not prompt the EU to follow the same path.<\/p>\n<p><i>\u201cAmerican sanctions are for freeing people, European sanctions are for freeing the country,\u201d<\/i> she stressed.<\/p>\n<p>Tsikhanouskaya also said that both Ukraine and Belarus are suffering from Russia\u2019s imperialist pressure. In her view, Kyiv and Minsk should <i>\u201cwork together\u201d<\/i> in the future, although she acknowledged that Ukrainians will not forgive Belarus for facilitating the Russian invasion. At the same time, she expressed hope that Ukraine would help Belarus become free.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking about sanctions policy, the democratic leader noted that Europe has now become the <i>\u201cbad cop\u201d<\/i> for <b>Alyaksandr Lukashenka<\/b>. Whereas previously, she said, Europe had been seen as the <i>\u201cgood cop\u201d<\/i> and the United States as the <i>\u201cbad cop\u201d<\/i>, the roles have now reversed: the EU is increasing pressure on Minsk, while Washington has moved to ease restrictions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Head of the United Transitional Cabinet Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has urged the European Union not to replicate the US approach of easing sanctions on Belarus in exchange for the release of political prisoners. In an interview with Politico, she said sanctions remain \u201cvery important and effective instruments\u201d capable of changing the regime\u2019s behaviour. According to her, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":517655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6991e79e63787.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Tsikhanouskaya Urges EU Not to Follow US Example in Lifting Sanctions on Belarus"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142339,142338],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-517683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-news"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}