Tikhanovskaya Confirmed That She Took €15 Thousand From The Belarusian Special Services
- 7.08.2025, 12:43
She kept the money for five years and never told anyone about it.
Belarusian propaganda channel ONT aired a video showing Major General Andrei Pavlyuchenko, head of the Operational Analytical Center (OAC) under the Lukashenko administration, handing Svetlana Tikhanovskaya an envelope with money.
The events in the video take place on August 10, 2020 in Minsk. After a conversation in the CEC building, in which Tikhanovskaya recorded an appeal calling on Belarusians to stop protesting, she went with OAC chief Pavlyuchenko to her home. Next, state TV shows the frames of hidden footage. They show Lukashenka's general handing Tikhanovskaya an envelope with money.
VIDEO OF TIKHANOVSKAYA RECORDED BY THE CEC OF BELARUS FOR BT
"Here is the money you asked for. If there is anything, you can always contact our embassy, we will help. Svetlana, hide the money, Masha (Maria Moroz - head of Tikhanovskaya's election headquarters) will come now," the general says.
After that, Tikhanovskaya took the envelope and moved it to the windowsill, covering it with a towel. Later, Maria Moroz appears in the apartment, Pavlyuchenko addresses her simply as "Masha".
Tikhanovskaya and Moroz gathered their things and left the apartment. Then ONT showed footage of the car crossing the border between Belarus and Lithuania.
Sama Tikhanovskaya in a commentary for "Zerkalo" confirmed that she took money from the head of the UAC, but says she "did not ask for it and did not open the envelope before the release of the movie." The envelope, she said, contained €15,000.
"I never asked to be taken out and had no intention of going anywhere," she said.
"I was under enormous emotional pressure at the time. I wasn't prepared for this and didn't know how to behave in such situations. I didn't tell about this ill-fated envelope, because I was ashamed that I had it," explained Tikhanovskaya.
It should be noted that for almost five years Svetlana Tikhanovskaya refused to comment on the story with the money handed over to her, voiced by Lukashenko on October 9, 2020. In an interview with blogger Nikita Melkozerov on August 2, 2025, when asked whether she took money from the Belarusian special services, Tikhanovskaya replied that she would tell about it only "after the changes."
Read more in an interview with the BBC on June 4, 2025, Tikhanovskaya said: the condition for the Belarusian authorities to let her leave Belarus was that she had recorded a video on BT saying that people should not take to the streets so that "no blood would be spilled."
"I was given 20 minutes to pack. I took only a small backpack with my documents. We were taken to the border. I couldn't believe I was already out of the country. I immediately recorded a video: "I'm out of the country. I'm sorry." To be honest, I was sure that people would stop everything. That they would support me. I felt like a traitor," she said.
VIDEO OF TIKHANOVSKAYA RECORDED AFTER EXIT TO LITHUANIA
Tihanovskaya still won't talk about why she went to the CEC on August 10, 2020, the day after the election.