Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is a Belarusian politician and the leader of the her country’s democratic movement. In the 2020 Belarusian presidential election, she ran as the main opposition candidate after her husband Sergei Tikhanovsky was arrested by Belarusian authorities. She will be in Washington, DC, April 27-29 to meet with members of the U.S. administration and congressional leadership, and to attend former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s funeral service.
She will meet with Belarusians at GW and discuss the current situation in Belarus in the context of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the prospects for Belarusian opposition.
Tsikhanouskaya will be a guest speaker at “Between the EU and Russia: Domains of Diversity and Contestation,” a conference held jointly by PONARS Eurasia and the BEAR Network. During the two-day conference, experts from the BEAR Network and PONARS Eurasia, as well as other guests, will take part in roundtables to discuss key research themes and policy implications related to diversity and contestation on the EU’s eastern borders and the effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.