Macron meets Belarusian opposition leader in Vilnius

Bloomberg

Emmanuel Macron met the leader of the opposition in Belarus and promised to help mediate an end to the country’s political crisis, as he seeks to persuade European Union chiefs he’s serious about confronting Russia.
The meeting in Vilnius on Tuesday was the first between a leader of a Group of Seven nation and Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled across the border to Lithuania after post-election protests were met with a violent police response. During their conversation, she asked Macron for help.
“We had a very good discussion,” Macron told reporters afterward. “Now we need to be pragmatic and support the Belarus people, and we will do our best.”
Macron’s on a three-day visit to the Baltic region amid increasing friction between the EU and Russia, which is
helping President Alexander Lukashenko retain power in Minsk and has been asked to explain the use of a military-grade toxin in an attack on its most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny. The trip, planned before the latest tensions, will now focus on those issues.
Russia remains a concern for Lithuania, which like the other two Baltic nations was once an unwilling member of the Soviet Union. The three countries have been watching the Kremlin’s increasing assertiveness with alarm, and Macron’s apparently soft stance towards Moscow in recent months had been viewed with discomfort.
His advisers described a strategy “to maintain open policy channels” with Russia, though he caused further nervousness last year by calling NATO, the key to the security of the Baltic region, “brain dead.”
Addressing a joint news conference in Vilnius with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, Macron said he understood “the sensitiveness on the topic,” but that “we need to re-engage this dialogue to avoid the worst again.”
He also said he backed sanctions against officials in Belarus over the contested election and violent suppression of protests, as well as mediation with Russia.
The EU will hold a summit on October 1-2 to discuss potential sanctions.