Maidan

Even under enormous pressure from Moscow, Belarus saw the crisis in Ukraine as a way to increase its geopolitical importance, improve its negotiating power in relations with Russia and to change its strained relations with the EU.

Ukrainians today are more serious about liberal democracy than many Europeans have been for a long time. The traditional values of Europe – self-reliance, self-determination – today are much stronger in the Maidan square than in parts of, say, Greece.

With this in mind, we wish the protesters in Ukraine well and hope that their situation, where the confrontation with the state is direct, visible and imminent, also clarifies it to the rest of the world that the struggle is always there.