Biden meets the leader of the Belarusian opposition after the NATO summit

president weAnd Joe BidenAnd on Wednesday the twelfth he met with the Leader of the Opposition Belarus in exile, Svetlana Tikhanovskayain Vilnius, where NATO summit Mainly dedicated to The war in UkraineReport to the White House.

In the 2020 presidential election — the results of which are in dispute — Tikhanovskaya, whose husband is imprisoned in Belarus, has become the main opponent in her country, which is ruled by an iron-fisted dictator. Alexander Lukashenko Since 1994.

Like thousands of her compatriots, she was forced into displacement after the elections to escape repression from the authorities.

The White House said in a statement that during the meeting, Biden expressed “the United States’ continued commitment to defending and advancing human rights, including freedom of expression and free and fair elections in Belarus.”

The meeting came after Lukashenko played the role of mediator last month between the Russian president Russian President Vladimir Putin that it The head of the Russian paramilitary Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhinto reach an agreement that puts an end to the paramilitary rebellion in Russia.

A few days ago, Tikhanovskaya warned that her husband, Sergey TikanovskyHe might have died in prison.

The opposition leader’s husband was sentenced in December 2021 to 18 years in prison, a sentence some saw as political revenge for his defiance of Lukashenko.

Biden also met with the prime minister LithuaniaIngrida Simonetti, with whom he stressed the “strong bilateral relationship” between the two countries.

The US President arrived on Wednesday evening at Finland, a NATO member since April, is on a 24-hour visit. There he will end his European tour, which took him before Vilnius to London.