Good morning to you, Mr. Chair and all the members of the committee. I am appearing for the first time before this distinguished body, and I am very honoured to have such an opportunity.
I represent the United Transitional Cabinet of Belarus. It is a body established by the national leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya in August 2022 in order to represent, as we believe, the real national interests of Belarus.
Of course, it is widely known that, after the falsified presidential elections in August 2020, Lukashenko lost all legitimacy and the legal possibility of representing our country and people in the international arena. This election caused mass protests—which were peaceful, I should stress—in the streets of Minsk. These lasted about one year, I would say. All of those peaceful protests were brutally repressed by the cronies of Lukashenko, and thousands of people were arrested, tortured, disappeared and even killed. Those actions in autumn 2020 caused a modest reaction, I would say, in the international community, but I should stress that Canada was among the first countries to introduce personal sanctions against the regime of Lukashenko and those officials who were responsible for massive systematic violations of human rights.
Unfortunately, this didn't stop the dictator, who went on to the act of air piracy against an Irish civil jet flying from Athens to Vilnius. It's a well-known story from May 2021, when this jet was forced to land in Minsk and some opposition figures were arrested. That caused another round of sanctions, including sanctions on the part of Canada. I should stress, as well, that as with the first round, this one was coordinated with the European Union and the United States. That is a much more effective way of introducing sanctions against the regime of Lukashenko. Unfortunately, this has had little effect, I would say, on the behaviour of the regime, because it is still fighting against the protests felt all over the country of Belarus.
In response to the European sanctions, Lukashenko instrumentalized the migration crisis on the border of the European Union—on Belarus's borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. Basically, this crisis is still going on. Daily, we have reports saying that 50, 100 or 150 illegal migrants are trying to cross the border between Belarus and Poland or other neighbouring countries. Again, there was another round of sanctions on the part of Canada and the European Union for this development.
Here we come to February 2022, when Putin and Russia invaded Ukraine. The main strike at that time came from the territory of Belarus. As you know, Lukashenko was complicit with Putin in this war of aggression and contributed, to the best of his capacity, to the movements of troops and to logistics, repairs, technical support and infrastructure.
Naturally, the western countries responded to this aggression with another round of sanctions. Belarus was included, but this time, we should admit, they were not that coordinated, since most of the sanctions applied to Russia but not to Belarus. That gave Lukashenko an additional chance to benefit from the situation. Some products that could not be directly supplied to Russia were supplied through Belarus.
I would share the view expressed earlier by the first witness that, indeed, neighbouring countries are trying to benefit from any loophole left in this sanctions regime, if it is not coordinated. In the global world, we believe that for the sanctions to be smart, they need to be coordinated. Otherwise we promote evasions of the sanctions; we promote black or grey schemes to provide the goods.
This is what is happening right now, in the post-Soviet space, when we have the figures for the exports or imports from such countries as Armenia, Kirghizia and Kyrgyzstan skyrocketing in respect of trade with Russia or trade with Belarus.