Tsikhanouskaya has no 'hard feelings' about reduced security – Lithuanian president

VILNIUS – The office of Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya decided to diversify its activities, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda says after Tsikhanouskaya informed Lithuanian lawmakers of her decision to move to Warsaw.

The president emphasized that she "has no hard feelings or resentment" about Lithuania reducing its security level.

"I personally spoke with Ms. Tsikhanouskaya quite recently in Davos. She has no hard feelings or ill will about our decision to change the security level," Nauseda told reporters in Warsaw on Saturday.

In late 2025, Lithuania downgraded Tsikhanouskaya's protection level, with the police now in charge of her protection, instead of the Dignitary Protection Service. This was done on the grounds that the threat to Tsikhanouskaya had decreased, but critics said that this had diminished her status.

As reported by BNS, Tsikhanouskaya informed Lithuanian MPs last week of her decision to move to Warsaw. 

According to Nauseda, the Belarusian opposition representative's team is splitting its activities, with some members remaining in Vilnius.

"So there is no need to make any drama here as Ms. Tsikhanouskaya truly appreciates our efforts to provide her with political asylum all these years and is certainly not going anywhere far away. She will always be close to us, she will come, we will meet," the president said.

"We will continue to be a country that wants and is able to create conditions for the opposition, for opposition figures fighting for freedom, regardless of which countries they come from, to operate in Lithuania and to operate freely," he added.

Tsikhanouskaya ran against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, in the 2020 presidential election, with the opposition claiming that she was the real winner of the vote.

The Belarusian authorities then cracked down on protests, arresting thousands of people and forcing even more to flee abroad.

Dzianis Kuchynski told reporters that Siarhei Tsikhanouski, Tsikhanouskaya's husband, who was released from prison last year, is now in the US for security reasons.