Foreign Affairs committee  No. In Belarus it was never a badge of honour. It was a badge of dishonour. It was the period in Russia, if I remember correctly, when the western sanctions were introduced after the aggression in Ukraine, there was a very feeble attempt to save face where they started to call th

Foreign Affairs committee  I don't recollect anybody.... Maybe when two or three of them got real drunk they would boast about this, but it's not a badge of honour among the people. Never.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much. It was my honour.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, absolutely. Again, I've had first-hand experience because some of the wardens in the prison were secretly or confidentially talking to me and saying that they were very afraid. They were afraid of publicity. They asked me not to release their names to the press because they

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  Do you mean a badge of honour for Belarusian colleagues?

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, absolutely. You're absolutely right. It helps protect people. Another thing is that it creates a kind of opening, because when people who are on the side of the regime, or are members of the regime, or are those who have actually implemented whatever policies the regime ha

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, absolutely. Absolutely, it probably saved my life. I was then—pardon me for saying this—the most well-known opposition politician in the prison because my whole family was targeted. Initially, my wife was also in prison. They tried to abduct our little son. Everybody underst

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  I would—

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, I agree with you.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think that sometimes we allow a false rationale, a false logic, to enter the discussion. What people like Putin or Lukashenko try to do is, first, make the best argument they have against sanctions, which is that sanctions hurt the people. It's hypocrisy because the regime is h

Foreign Affairs committee  That's a very good question. I think you do recognize the problem, and you targeted it very well. I would say that it's expanding, because Russia is operating very effectively in this regard. However, this is combined not only with politicians but with the think tanks in the wes

Foreign Affairs committee  I must say that today we are facing a lot of local crises and also global crises. I must say that we lack the type of leadership that you are talking about because especially after the big expansion of the European Union, I think that everybody was kind of complacent about the fu

Foreign Affairs committee  I will say that yes, it helps to save the lives of people. Of course, after the Magnitsky law, we lost our good friend Boris Nemstov, who was killed. He was a very strong supporter of the Magnitsky act. You cannot prevent these things from happening, if you are retaining this s