Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: From Chernobyl child to president-elect of Belarus

Tsikhanouskaya is recognised by many countries including Ireland as Belarus’s democratically elected leader

Fri Oct 30 2026 - 06:00 • 4 MIN READ

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the woman recognised by many countries as the president-elect of Belarus, describes Ireland as her “second home”.

During the 1990s she was one of the “Chernobyl children” brought to Ireland by Adi Roche. Then she was known as Sviatlana Pilipchuk and her hometown of Mikashevichy in the south of Belarus is just 30km from where the Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred in 1986.

She spent summers in Ireland with Henry Deane and his wife Marian from the age of 12 to 18. Tsikhanouskaya stood out even then. She could speak English better than any of the other Belarusian children and was often an unofficial translator for the younger ones.

She speaks warmly of Ireland, not only because of her childhood memories, but because she sees Ireland as a country that won its freedom from a bigger power and transitioned to a peaceful liberal democracy.

“I’m so glad that so many nations managed to gain their independence and freedom. And when you are living in freedom and democracy year after year, people start forgetting what it cost them,” she says.

“Belarus is an example to show that you have to cherish what you have because it is so easy to lose it and so difficult to get it back.

“The fight for democracy sometimes is romanticised, but our path is paved with suffering and pain and tears. I encourage ordinary people to invest into their own democracy. I think it is a moral obligation of every citizen of the free world to contribute to the freedom of other nations.”

Tsikhanouskaya is in Dublin as part of Ireland’s EU presidency. She participated in a co-hosted conference on Belarusian and Irish identity at the Abbey Theatre.

She is in many ways an accidental politician. It was her husband Sergei Tikhanovsky who led opposition to the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko in advance of the 2020 general election in the country. Tikhanovsky was arrested and jailed. His wife took up the cause and Lukashenko let her stand, believing the Belarus electorate would not vote for a woman.

Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, won the general election with 81 per cent of the vote. The margin of victory suggested little pretence of a fair election. The EU rejected the result, so even did the first Trump administration, and others followed.

Protests erupted after the result was announced. They were put down brutally and there are hundreds of accounts of protesters being tortured in prisons. Her husband was released from jail last year and is in the United States.

Ireland is one of the countries that recognises Tsikhanouskaya as president-elect of Belarus. The title is important, she says, and it denies Lukashenko the international recognition he craves.

“This policy of non-recognition is extremely important. Lukashenko understands now that he is a pariah,” she says.

“In 2020 we had a real national uprising and I ask people not to forget about these feelings of freedom.”

She is prepared to talk to the people around Lukashenko about the peaceful transition to power, but not to Lukashenko himself.

“People around him also understand he is ready to sacrifice everything to stay in power. We have to save our country both from Lukashenko and [Vladimir] Putin,” she says.

“Lukashenko knows he is a war criminal against his own people. He will not be forgiven and people will not forget what he has done.

Shortly after the election, Tsikhanouskaya left for Lithuania, setting up a government in exile.

She has since moved to Warsaw as the head of the united transitional cabinet, which says it is ready to step in if and when Lukashenko leaves office.

Far away from her native land, she needs security detail everywhere she goes and an officer from the Garda’s Special Detective Unit accompanies us for a photo shoot.

In 2021 Lukashenko stunned the world by forcing a Ryanair flight flying over Belarus’s airspace to land so that an opposition journalist could be arrested. Dissidents living abroad are often threatened and their families are intimidated at home.

Russia used Belarus as a staging post for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Tsikhanouskaya describes Belarus as a “geopolitical hostage” of Russia.

There are fears among the Baltic States and Poland that Putin will use Belarus again, this time to attack Nato allies. Lithuanian foreign minister Kestutis Budrys warned in Ireland this week that Russian provocations through Belarus were becoming worse.

“What we see in Belarus is new military infrastructure being built that is not needed if the country is not preparing for an escalation,” Tsikhanouskaya says.

“We see facilities for nuclear weapons. Lukashenko is ready to provide our territory for possible escalation if it is needed from Russia.”

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Transitioning Belarus from the Lukashenko dictatorship to democracy, she concedes, will not be easy. The country has a huge security apparatus to keep the incumbent in power and will need outside help.

“What I definitely want is Belarus to return to the European family of nations,” Tsikhanouskaya says.

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