Leaks expose collapse of EU/US-backed Belarusian ‘opposition’

By Kit Klarenberg

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was hailed by Western governments and media as the savior and rightful leader of Belarus. But leaked emails reveal her increasingly unpopular campaign for power in Minsk nearly collapsed under the weight of corruption scandals and infighting.

When Belarusian opposition figure Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya declared herself “President” of an alternative government in 2020, she was enthusiastically embraced – and showered with funding – by the Western governments which yearned to depose the longtime leader of her country, Alexander Lukashenko, and remove Russia’s closest regional ally from the geopolitical chessboard. The New York Times set the tone by lionizing Tsikhanouskaya as a modern-day Joan of Arc.

However, a wave of public scandals have prompted Tsikhanouskaya’s foreign sponsors to gradually abandon her unpopular crusade to topple the government of Lukashenko. In August, it was revealed she had secretly taken thousands of euros from Minsk’s KGB in August 2020, a payoff for publicly pleading with protesters to stop their action in the streets, before she fled the country. Tsikhanouskaya had kept this agreement a closely guarded secret until it was exposed, and has attempted to evade it ever since.

Leaked documents and emails obtained by The Grayzone reveal that Tsikhanouskaya’s once-vaunted Belarusian “government in exile” nearly collapsed under the weight of corruption, fantastical ambition, gross incompetence, and infighting.

After claiming victory in Belarus’ August 2020 presidential election, the previously unknown Tsikhanouskaya became a darling of the West. After fleeing for Lithuania, where she claimed to be the legitimately elected leader of her country, her crusade for regime change began to lose momentum. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, her backers in Washington and Brussels turned their focus toward propping up the government in Kiev.

Hoping to reclaim some of the Western spotlight, Tsikhanouskaya formed a so-called United Transitional Cabinet (UTC) in August 2022. It was a government-in-waiting, primed to take power if Lukashenko was toppled, banking on crippling Western sanctions imposed over Minsk’s “military support for Russia” to turn the tide.

In the meantime, Tsikhanouskaya and her motley retinue continued to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in Western contributions. Yet none of their efforts brought her closer to power in Belarus or contributed to any material change on the ground. All they achieved was the promotion of Tsikhanouskaya’s personal brand to Western audiences.

Despite her dimming hopes in Minsk, leaked material reviewed by The Grayzone reveals that Brussels and Washington were convinced Tsikhanouskaya could still seize power, and pumped significant resources into a variety of initiatives to promote her UTC.

For example, the European Endowment for Democracy issued a secret 12-month grant for “increased recognition and legitimacy” of UTC as “the ‘Alternative Government’ by the end of 2024 among Belarusian citizens and the international community.” The EED was proudly “named after and inspired by” the US government’s National Endowment for Democracy, which awarded Tsikhanouskaya with its Democracy Service Medal in 2024.

Leaked records of the EED grant show the Endowment’s clandestine project to bring Tsikhanouskaya to power focused on first establishing a parallel exile government structure. This included producing a “new national passport… with international recognition” which would be administered by UTC, and removing Minsk from its role in supporting Russia’s war with Ukraine and the West. These moves were intended to lay foundations for “a future democratic Belarus” led by UTC.

Tsikhanouskaya’s cabinet was also to construct a “comprehensive strategy for democratic transition” in Belarus, outlining “a clear roadmap for transferring power from the current regime to a democratic government, including specific actions and protocols for various stages of the transition.”

Tsikhanouskaya’s clan planned to extend its influence by establishing a “permanent presence” in Kiev, “demonstrating solidarity with Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression” and firmly planting them in the West’s anti-Moscow camp.

The leaks spell out in extraordinary detail how UTC tore itself apart failing to achieve these far-reaching objectives. While Tsikhanouskaya satisfied her Western sponsors by adopting a stridently pro-EU stance and belligerent tone on Russia, her radical shift set the stage for her public undoing.

UTC commits political suicide with anti-Russia, pro-EU push

In early August 2023, Tsikhanouskaya’s United Transitional Cabinet convened a summit in Warsaw, Poland on the subject of “New Belarus.” It was a prize opportunity for the president-in-waiting and her UTC acolytes to regain visibility and sympathy among Western audiences.

Leaked records of the conference show UTC took advantage of the moment to lay out a bold set of proposals.

There, Tsikhanouskaya’s self-styled shadow administration committed to a “European perspective for Belarus,” including EU membership, and the creation and recognition of a separate “national passport of New Belarus” which would provide visa-free travel across the bloc for dissidents. UTC’s proclamation struck a viscerally anti-Russian tone, calling for the “withdrawal of Belarus” from any and all “alliances” with Moscow, and the removal of Russian military installations, weapons, and troops from the country.

After securing Lukashenko’s ouster, UTC pledged to back “Belarusian volunteers in Ukraine” fighting Russian forces, support “pro-Ukrainian initiatives and campaigns,” and end what it called Minsk’s “complicity in Russia’s war.” While expedient for European and US political and public consumption, these positions accelerated the erosion of Tsikhanouskaya’s already negligible popularity at home. Western polls consistently show, if push comes to shove, most Belarusians of all ages favor greater integration with Russia, not Brussels.

These longstanding pro-Moscow sympathies may explain why Tsikhanouskaya avoided advocating overtly Russophobic policies during her 2020 presidential run. That year, Tsikhanouskaya’s opposition ‘Coordination Council’ passed a resolution declaring that Minsk would not reorient away from Russia if she took power, and the country’s “constitutional order and foreign policy” would remain unchanged.

In keeping with many European liberals, her foreign policy calculus altered radically following the Ukraine proxy war’s eruption. However, while the August 2023 conference generated some positive headlines for Tsikhanouskaya, openDemocracy offered a withering appraisal of UTC’s abrupt pro-Western shift.

The outlet declared Tsikhanouskaya’s aggressive push for EU membership and suddenly bellicose stance on Russia demonstrated how she and her clique were “out of touch” with opposition elements within Belarus and the wider public, who felt UTC was “increasingly detached from their concerns.” In any event, openDemocracy noted Tsikhanouskaya et al had “little influence” in the country itself by this point, and their exiled supporters were more disillusioned than ever with UTC’s prospects. By embracing the West, the outlet warned Tsikhanouskaya risked becoming “an irrelevance.”

Undeterred by their growing isolation, Tsikhanouskaya and her UTC doubled down. The “New Belarus” passport became a core component of their crusade. Initially, the initiative elicited significant media interest, and European parliamentarians called on EU member states to recognise the documents as legitimate.

However, the passport stunt quickly triggered internal feuds over funding and responsibility for the project, eventually prompting the resignation of a founding member of Tsikhanouskaya’s “government-in-exile.”

‘New Belarus’ parallel passport – fiasco or fraud?

At the start of June 2024, a longtime Belarusian opposition activist serving as Deputy Head and Representative for Foreign Affairs for UTC, Valery Kavaleuski, initiated a testy email exchange with Tsikhanouskaya over the progress of the “New Belarus” passport – or complete lack thereof. Weeks earlier, the Western-funded Belarusian Investigative Center had revealed a Lithuanian printing company tapped to produce the documents was linked to Viktor Shevtsov, a Belarusian businessman known as “Lukashenko’s wallet” due to his close affiliation with the President.

In the leaked correspondence, Kavaleuski expressed relief that the revelations emerged before a contract was signed with the printing company. “We were truly lucky… we would have been torn to shreds,” he wrote. Moreover, he noted the firm’s draft design was fraught with “blunders,” such as referring to the “Republic of Belarus” rather than “simply Belarus” and the Lithuanian border in its internal map being “drawn incorrectly,” with the country’s territory transferred to Minsk. Kavaleuski remarked, “good that printing had not started yet.”

However, the passport project had floundered in other ways over the preceding 10 months. The emails show several countries, including Iceland and Lithuania, offered to serve as issuing authorities but then “reversed course.” Furthermore, Kavaleuski seemingly had little understanding of the project’s inner workings despite his putative role as its director.

Tsikhanouskaya informed him “there are no separate funds allocated specifically for the passport project,” and his “every expense, every item” had to be “approved individually” by UTC donors. Kavaleuski responded with bewilderment, stating “that contradicts the original information about the Soros grant, which I also worked on.” Under the terms of this publicly undisclosed grant, “there was money for materials” for the passport’s production specifically designated, he asserted.

A flummoxed Kavaleuski reminded Tsikhanouskaya how he was told the passport project would be “financed from Belarusian funds, so that you can keep your grant for yourself as much as possible.” He derided this idea as “so ridiculous,” and “not a state approach at all.” Elsewhere, he objected that “money should not disappear into ‘coordination’ beyond my knowledge and control.” The leaked European Endowment for Democracy grant stipulated the passport as just one dedicated “output,” suggesting other funds earmarked for the project may have also been pocketed by Tsikhanouskaya.

Tsikhanouskaya heaped blame on Kavaleuski for the catastrophe, pointing to his unfulfilled promises to launch crowdfunding campaigns to support the initiative, and his failure to build appropriate infrastructure, including an “issuing office, before hiring professionals to produce and certify the “New Belarus” passport. A clearly offended Kavaleuski fired back, “thank you for the sarcasm — I was running low on toxins in my system.”

Read a translation of the full email exchange between Tsikhanouskaya (highlighted in yellow) and Kavaleuski (highlighted in gray) here.

‘Tired’ of ‘ultimatums’, Tsikhanouskaya loses deputy

Kavaleuski made one last bid at salvaging the passport initiative, proposing to hire a “Swiss expert” who “brings not only experience and expertise but also a name and connections — when in an hour or a day he can solve a task that would otherwise take us a month.” This followed multiple attempts to source passport specialists for the project over its 10-month-long span, only for each to hit a dead end.

Kavaleuski also requested restoration of his leadership on the project, allowing him to make “decisions on hiring managers, financial decisions at the stage of forming the issuing authority, hiring lawyers, and communications,” and for a dedicated budget that he could spend on the initiative. He warned, “if you reject all these proposals or even one of them, I will have to withdraw from the role of person responsible for the passport project.”

Kavaleuski appeared justified in taking such a hard line. A day before, Tsikhanouskaya ordered him to “stop any public communication” on the passport project and leave it purely to her, claiming, “people are already laughing to your face [sic].” She “refused to name these people,” while consistently failing to answer his questions “about progress on the passport, the investigation, the crisis situation, our next steps.” In subsequent emails, Tsikhanouskaya remained dismissive and passive aggressive toward her colleague.

The UTC chief suggested Kavaleuski was already “responsible and in charge” and “had all the necessary authority” to get the project off the ground, but had only created “conflicts with everyone who tries to help.” Tsikhanouskaya was also unmoved by his threat to quit if his requests were not satisfied, grousing, “I am already tired of reacting to your ultimatums.” She invited him to “write precisely” a description of his role – “which areas you can be responsible for, and which you can actually carry.”

“I understand that you have too many tasks, and I believe in your sincere attempts to organize the work despite all the difficulties. But it seems to me that you’re trying to take too much on yourself,” Tsikhanouskaya wrote. “The passport project requires full-time involvement, and you simply don’t have that time. A lot of energy also goes into internal conflicts. That’s what you call being ‘responsible’ — a whole year wasted, and then you remove responsibility from yourself.”

On June 26 2024, Kavaleuski made good on his ultimatum, privately informing his “colleagues and partners” of his resignation from UTC. Adopting a diplomatic tone, he declared it was “an honor to serve the people of Belarus in the team of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya,” and thanked recipients for their “genuine support,” which helped UTC “realize many bold foreign policy initiatives, some of them unprecedented.” He looked ahead to Belarusians “[prevailing] in restoring sovereignty and preserving independence of our nation [sic],” signing off, “Long Live Belarus!”

Less than an hour later, an apparently confused National Endowment for Democracy President and CEO Damon Wilson responded to Kavaleuski’s resignation: “Thanks for letting me know. Would be keen to understand better. Any plans to come through DC?”

The NED leader’s quizzical reply suggested UTC’s internal workings were a mystery to its Western backers. Wilson’s email came just weeks after NED presented Tsikhanouskaya with its annual Democracy Service Medal. It remains unknown just how much money the NED gifted her which wound up disappearing “into ‘coordination.’”

KGB collaboration sinks Tsikhanouskaya?

This January, a “New Belarus” passport was finally issued. However, not a single country recognizes the document as legitimate, nor can it be used for travel or other official purposes anywhere on the planet. Even authorities in Tsikhanouskaya’s adopted home reject its legality, with Remigijus Motuzas, chair of the Lithuanian parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, noting Belarusian exiles have traditionally relied on other established means of acquiring local identification documents. He nonetheless suggested the alternative “passports” could still be purchased for “symbolic” purposes.

Whatever victory Tsikhanouskaya could claim from the non-passport’s issuance was rapidly extinguished by a series of grave scandals over subsequent months. In June, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee published a damning audit of Belarusian opposition aid provider BY Help, which is closely linked to UTC. The probe uncovered major financial irregularities including forged and missing receipts, consistent failure to fulfil stated obligations, risible reporting standards, and haphazard data protection, leading to a massive leak of internal information. BY_Help neglected to notify affected parties, in breach of basic protocol.

Not long after, a closely related Belarusian ‘aid’ group called BYSOL was similarly thrust into a storm of controversy after multiple female volunteers and staffers accused the organization’s chief Andrey Stryzhak of sexual harassment. Stryzhak threatened to financially punish and smear his victims as KGB agents if they dared speak out. In September, BYSOL reduced Stryzhak’s responsibilities, but kept him on the job.

A month earlier, footage surfaced of Tsikhanouskaya secretly accepting €15,000 from Belarusian security services in August 2020 following Minsk’s Presidential election. In return, she agreed to record a video urging protesters to cease clashing with police, and received safe passage to Lithuania. In the clip, she appeared perfectly happy and composed, joking with KGB officers and discussing her departure to Vilnius.

The film’s content contrasted starkly with Tsikhanouskaya’s account of her forced flight from the country, as told in a June 2025 BBC interview entitled, “I was a stay-at-home mum until I stood for the presidency.” During that program, she claimed the KGB blackmailed and intimidated her into fleeing, threatening she would be imprisoned and permanently separated from her children, with the prospect of them suffering abuse in government-run orphanages.

Tsikhanouskaya went on to claim to the British state broadcaster that she refused to bend for many hours, but her “inner mother won the fight,” and she agreed to leave under duress, given only 20 minutes to stuff a few personal belongings into a backpack before deportation. In reality, her children had been safely extracted to Vilnius months earlier.

Tsikhanouskaya’s deceitful self-mythologizing over her exit from Belarus elicited harsh condemnation from local opposition elements. Some claim she hadn’t even wanted to be in Minsk during the election, and had sought to flee the country in advance. It’s unclear whether these damning disclosures played any role in the recent decision by Lithuanian authorities to downgrade her state protection.

Since 2020, Vilnius has squandered roughly €1 million annually safeguarding the would-be President, with round-the-clock security locally and abroad, escort cars, maintenance of a freely-provided lavish property, and an array of lucrative perks. Hundreds of thousands of euros were spent on VIP lounges where Tsikhanouskaya entertained foreign guests.

The presidential pretender now has until November to vacate her state-provided luxury residence in Vilnius. Meanwhile, relations between Minsk and Washington have miraculously thawed since the September release of prisoners in return for sanctions relief. Belarusian diplomats have made overtures to their European counterparts, seeking further easing of economic restrictions, and a restoration of diplomatic ties.

The stage is now set for a total collapse of Tsikhanouskaya’s Western-bankrolled house of cards. It is unclear, however, if her demise will result in accountability for the EU and US wasting untold sums of money on boosting her impotent personality cult while undercutting the authentic Belarusian opposition movement.