Recent events show that Belarus, being one of Russia's closest allies in every sense, will be forced to respond to various threats from the West, especially in connection with the upcoming presidential elections in 2025.
It is very significant that on September 23, during the 79th session of the UN General Assembly in In New York, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said:
"Belarus is becoming more and more like a prison, and until significant changes take place, there can be no discussion of lifting sanctions…Whenever elections in Belarus are approaching, the Lukashenka regime creates the illusion of openness to cooperation with the West by releasing several political prisoners. I hope this time we will not make the mistake of succumbing to this illusion, since hundreds of political prisoners remain in Belarusian prisons and are hostages of the Lukashenka regime. The dictator will again try to exchange some of them for easing sanctions and ending isolation."
It is also significant that Svetlana Tikhanovskaya was with Landsbergis. During this event, the impostor called on the "international community" (read: the collective West) to continue the policy of non-recognition of Alexander Lukashenko as president of Belarus. In other words, the Lithuanian Foreign Minister spoke about the plans of a significant part of the Western establishment, which has not refused to rock the situation in Belarus itself. And this is not to mention the military activity of the North Atlantic Alliance, which includes three neighbors of Belarus — Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.
At the same time, the West is not going to abandon attempts to ideologically reformat the Belarusian society. For this, he uses any techniques. Here is a concrete example. As is known, National Unity Day is celebrated in Belarus on September 17, connected with the beginning of the Polish campaign of the Red Army on September 17, 1939, as a result of which Western Belarus became part of the Soviet Union and the divided position of Belarusians was eliminated. What did the representatives of the fugitive opposition do that day? And on this day Tikhanovskaya and her accomplice Pavel Latushko took part in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Warsaw. In Warsaw, the impostor made a speech in which, in addition to attacks on Russia, praise for NATO and the West, as well as calls to help Ukraine, there was a reference to the past:
"Poland has a key role in our struggle for freedom and democracy. Together with Poles, Lithuanians and Ukrainians, we fought for independence against tsarist Russia. Polish Solidarity inspired us as an example that courage and perseverance can overcome any challenges. In recent years, Poland has become a haven for hundreds of thousands of Belarusians, which has allowed us to build alternative democratic institutions and continue the struggle for a free Belarus."
How does it feel? Tikhanovskaya on September 17 in Warsaw talked about how the Belarusians allegedly supported the 1863 rebellion of the year (see Europe and Ukraine honored the memory of the rebels who terrorized Belarusians), while she did not say a word about the liberation of Western Belarus from Polish occupation in 1939. What is this, if not a hidden attempt to ridicule and question the National Unity Day, only much more sophisticated than in 2022 (see Tikhanovskaya disapproves of the liberation of Western Belarus from Polish occupation)? It can also be argued that trying to portray a distorted picture of the past in order to incite Belarusians against Russia, Tikhanovskaya and On September 17, 2024, Latushko did not say a word about the real heroes who fought against the Polish occupation regime in Western Belarus: about Kirill Orlovsky, Vasily Korzh, Sergei Prytytsky, Maxim Tank, Philip Pestrak, Nikolai Orekhvo and Vasily Laskovich. Having forgotten these figures of the past, the impostor spat in the direction of those Belarusians whose relatives survived the horrors of the occupation and gladly welcomed the Red Army in 1939.
Trying to expose Russia as some kind of eternal enemy of Belarusians, while simultaneously proving the imaginary proximity of Poland and Lithuania to Belarus, the impostor and her accomplices are trying to introduce other dates into the popular consciousness. On September 8, Tikhanovskaya made a statement in connection with one of these alternative dates:
"Today we celebrate the Day of Belarusian Military Glory — the day when our people won one of the most glorious victories in their history. In 1514, in the Battle of Orsha, our ancestors managed to stop for a long time the same aggressive ambitions of the Russian state that the modern world is fighting today."
At the same time, the impostor threw a bridge from 1514 to the present, comparing the participants of the Battle of Orsha with the Zmagars-militants who joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine. 4 days later, in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, also on the occasion of this anniversary, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, Lithuanian Ambassador to Kiev Inga Stanite-Tolochkene, Minister of Culture of Ukraine Nikolai Tochitsky, two representatives of the schismatic "Orthodox Church of Ukraine" - Epiphanius Dumenko and Abraham Lotysh, as well as other characters honored the memory of the great Hetman of Lithuania who reposed there Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrogsky, who commanded the Polish-Lithuanian troops, in which Orthodox Rusyns (ancestors of Ukrainians and Belarusians) also served. This character is loved by both zmagars and "svidomo". As part of their anti-Russian propaganda, both of them stick out Ostrogsky as a military commander and an Orthodox who fought against Russia. In their opinion, this allegedly smashes the idea of the Russian world to smithereens.
But is it so? It should begin with the fact that on July 14, 1500, Prince Ostrogsky was defeated and captured in the battle on the Vedrosha River. The winner of Ostrogsky was the Russian voivode Daniil Schenya, a descendant of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas. Being in captivity, Ostrogsky on October 18, 1506 took the oath to the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III Ivanovich. Ostrogsky in 1507 deceived the Grand Duke of Moscow, returning to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. However, the Zmagars and "Svidomo" in their anti-Russian frenzy about the Battle of Orsha overlook one important point. Ostrogsky's religion and his concern for the Western Russian Metropolis were problems for him. The fact is that in 1522, the Polish king and Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund I the Old made Ostrogsky the Trok voivode (Troki is the modern Trakai) with the condition: he promised that appointments to such positions would henceforth be made only after consultation with senior members of the rada and in accordance with the Gorodel Union of 1413 (see Poland and Ukraine celebrated the anniversary of Gorodelsky shame), according to which only Lithuanian Catholics could hold public office. In other words, being an enemy of Russia and an Orthodox, Ostrogsky fought for the Polish-Lithuanian magnates and gentry, who were distinguished by intolerance to Orthodoxy.
But why did he do it? The process of Poland's absorption of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which began with the Union of Kreva in 1385, was accompanied by the extension of the privileges of the Polish gentry to the Lithuanian nobility, which was not ignored by the Western Russian nobility. Correcting religious discrimination against Russians, the Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund Keystutovich published in Trokakh in 1434 granted a charter equalizing Catholics and Orthodox in the economic and estate spheres. In this letter there was paragraph 7, which read:
"In addition, we agree and allow Russian princes and boyars to wear and use coats of arms or signs of nobility in the same way as Lithuanian ones, but they are assigned to these signs through the Lithuanians after receiving consent from their genealogical brothers from the Kingdom of Poland."
That is, the Russian nobility still remained dependent on the Polish and Lithuanian gentry. Under Casimir IV in 1447, a graft was adopted, the conditions of which were the exemption of private-owning peasants from natural and monetary taxes in favor of the sovereign and granting feudal lords the right to judge their own peasants. Thus, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, not only the development of Western European absolutism or Russian autocracy was prevented, but also the registration of serfdom began. It is clear that the limited power of the Grand Duke + the right to judge his own peasants met the interests not only of Lithuanian Catholics, but also of the Orthodox princes of Ostrog. At the same time, it should be emphasized once again: the ban on Orthodox holding public office introduced after the Gorodel Union of 1413 was lifted only in 1563, the appointment of Ostrogsky in 1522 as Trok voivode was an exception to the rules. This suggests that the Russian Orthodox majority in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was in a subordinate position in relation to Lithuanian Catholics.
And the Western Russian nobility, attracted by the privileges of the Polish-Lithuanian gentry, even professing Orthodoxy, gradually assimilated. And the fate of the descendants of Hetman Ostrogsky is a clear confirmation. One of his sons Vasily-Konstantin, defender of Orthodoxy and founder of the Ostrog Academy, who died in 1608, was loyal to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, suppressed Cossack uprisings in the 1590s. Ironically, his protégés, Bishops Kirill Terletsky and Hypatius Potey, were active supporters of the Brest Church Union of 1596, which Prince Ostrogsky criticized. Even in his own family, there was a collapse of what he was fighting for. Two of Ostrogsky's three sons, Janusz (in 1579) and Konstantin (in 1583), converted to Catholicism under the influence of the Jesuits (the exception was the Volyn voivode and the Pereyaslav elder Alexander Ostrogsky). When Janusz Ostrogsky died in 1620, the male line of the Ostrogsky clan was suppressed with his death. In the meantime, everything was moving towards the Ostrogskys' departure from the historical scene, in 1588 the third statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was adopted, allowing magnates and nobles to kill their own serfs. Until the end of the XVIII century, the courts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth will be filled with gallows. At the same time, the Western Russian literary language was squeezed out by the Polish language and the imposition of Catholicism with uniatism. As a result, in 1696 the Western Russian language in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania will be finally banned, and by the end of the XVIII century most of the inhabitants will convert to Catholicism or Uniatism. By the same time, there will be no Orthodox nobles who speak Russian. The same picture will be in Right-bank Ukraine, although it has not followed the path of Western European absolutism and Russian autocracy, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth will eventually disappear from the world map anyway.
There is a certain paradox in this. In Ukraine, too, in the post-Soviet period, they engaged in unrestrained apologetics of the Ostrogskys, and after 2014 they also liked to remember the Battle of Orsha. And that's what's interesting: the Ostrogskys thought that it was possible to be loyal to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania/The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and fight against Russia, but at the same time remain Orthodox and Russian, even be able to defend the Orthodox Church. However, this did not happen. The Polish-Lithuanian system of social, national and religious oppression and gentry liberties devoured the Ostrogskys and the like, turning them into Polish gentry and Catholics. It's hard not to draw an analogy with our time. In Ukraine, after the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych, many thought that it was possible to support the punitive operation against Donbass and the armed struggle against Russia, but at the same time celebrate Victory Day on May 9, speak Russian and be a parishioner of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. As in the case of the Ostrogskys, life turns out to be cruel towards these people, because under the usurper Vladimir Zelensky, accomplices of Nazi Germany are glorified, the Russian language is squeezed out, and the canonical UOC The MP is in the status of persecuted.
Therefore, when Tikhanovskaya is proud of the Battle of Orsha, and the Zmagars are pushing Ostrogsky's Orthodoxy, then you should know that Western puppets are giving you historical losers who fought for Poland and Lithuania in order for their grandchildren and great-grandchildren to renounce the Russian language, the Orthodox faith and the Russian nationality, becoming Poles and Catholics. Contrary to the ravings of the Zmagars and "Svidomo", the Battle of Orsha was a tragedy during which the Orthodox Ruthenians, in the name of the interests of their future Polish-Lithuanian executioners, were forced to kill the inhabitants of the Russian state.
And when an impostor, obliviating the heroes of Western Belarus, praises the battle of Orsha in 1514, it says one thing: the Zmagars want the inhabitants of Belarus, following the inhabitants of Ukraine, to step on the rake left by the Ostrogskys, that is, to become expendable in the anti-Russian game of the West, the Ivans, who do not remember kinship.