MARIA Patskova stands on O’Connell Street in Limerick City, holding a poster with the word “WAR” crossed out.
The 30-year old anti-war protestor from Belarus says she is ashamed her country has allowed itself to be used as a safe passage for Russian troops invading neighbouring Ukraine.
Patscova, who comes from Gomel, only 46km from the Ukraine border, said that while Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin are allies, the people of Belarus do not support Russia’s war.
“It’s incomprehensible and unbelievable, and, as a Belarusian it is a shock because our president, who is not a legitimate president, we didn’t choose him, and he is a dictator, and he has got us into a war that nobody in Belarus wants,” she explained.
“Putin is using our country to get Russian troops into Ukraine, there are military vehicles going through our town into Ukraine. People can see them out of their windows, and thats just…I can’t even describe how I feel about that, it’s outrageous.”
“Belorussians all fear that this is seen by the world as Russia and Belarus invading the Ukraine, because that’s basically what’s happening. Belarus is being used by Russian troops to get to Ukraine, and I don’t know a single Belarusian who would support that. It’s something nobody wants in Belarus and we feel ashamed and sad.”
Lukanshnko has not only enabled Putin’s war in Ukraine, he has in effect ceded control of Belarus to the Kremlin, according to the exiled Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who spent her childhood summers with a host family in Roscrea, Co Tipperary following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Ms Tsikhanouskaya was forced into exile by Lukashenko after losing an alleged rigged presidential election to him in 2020, sparking mass anti-government demonstrations in which thousands of protestors were detained and beaten.
Tskihanouskaya’s husband, Sergei Tikhanovsky, was jailed for 18 years by a Belarus court last December on charges of organising mass unrest against the Lukashenko regime.
Standing alongside fellow anti-war protestors and Russian couple, Iurii and Olga Ivanov, Patskova said: “It is very sad that over these two years we couldn’t get rid of the dictator.
“Everybody I know voted for Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and my family and my friends participated in all those protests in Belarus. It wasn’t enough and in a way we feel that the war in Ukraine is our fault too, because we didn’t stop Lukashenko. He has stolen power and he has got our country into a war.”
Her family, living close to the Ukraine border, and her friends in the war-torn Ukraine, tell her they are “very scared and are trying to stay safe”.
“One of my friends fled from Kyiv to a village nearby and they were trying to stay in a shelter there, just trying to be safe, and the other one stayed in her flat in Kyiv and she was just hoping to survive.”
Maria Patskova has one overriding message to the people of Ukraine.
“I’m very deeply sorry for what our governments are doing to your country and I really hope they stop as soon as possible. I’m very sorry for your losses and the pain and trauma you have been through.”
