Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya

Sviatlana Hieorhiyeuna Tsikhanouskaya (née Pilipchuk; born 11 September 1982) is a Belarusian opposition leader and political activist. Since running in the 2020 presidential election against President Alexander Lukashenko, she has led dissidence to his authoritarian rule through an alternate government operating from Lithuania and Poland.

Tsikhanouskaya became an opposition leader after her husband, Syarhei Tsikhanouski, sought to run in the 2020 presidential election. He was arrested, along with most other opposition leaders, and – since she could not file for presidential candidacy on his behalf – Tsikhanouskaya entered herself as a candidate. Lukashenko allowed her candidacy because he believed a woman could not create a legitimate opposition.

She ran on a platform of constitutional reform, seeking free and fair elections with term limits on the presidency, and she pledged to step down once those two goals had been implemented. After Lukashenko was declared the victor, she was held by Belarusian authorities and then forced into exile in Lithuania. Observers consider the election result to have been fraudulent, and Lithuania has recognized Tsikhanouskaya as Belarus's legitimate head of state.

Since fleeing to Lithuania, Tsikhanouskaya has established an opposition government. In 2020 she set up a Coordination Council and in 2022 a United Transitional Cabinet. As representative of a democratic Belarus, Tsikhanouskaya has met with several world leaders to negotiate sanctions against Lukashenko's government and to deny him recognition as a legitimate head of state.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she has advocated increased Western support for Ukraine, while warning that Russia's actions should not overshadow opposition to the dictatorship in Belarus. In 2023 Tsikhanouskaya was tried in absentia by the Belarusian government and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.