Her statement came on Friday, as this 9 August marks the fourth anniversary of the fraudulent presidential elections in Belarus.

„Only a small number of Belarusians have left the country, and a large number of activists are still there. Four years is not a sprint, it is a marathon. Of course it is difficult, but we remain united. We feel less attention from our partners at the moment, but the solidarity is not fading away,“ she told the LRT radio on Friday.

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„Our silence is not surrender. (&) Inside the country we cannot do anything visible at the moment because it is like one big gulag,“ Tsikhanouskaya, based in Vilnius since the 2020 elections, added.

The Belarusian opposition’s leader said she is ready to mobilise Belarusians fighting against the repressive Lukashenko regime ahead of the presidential vote scheduled for next year.

„A lot of work is being done behind the scenes, so we will try to use this event to our advantage – we will have a big media campaign launched and we will try to mobilise the people for the struggle,“ she underlined.

According to Tsikhanouskaya, democratic Belarusian citizens need to feel part of the European family.

„The Iron Curtain helps Putin and Lukashenko, but not the Belarusian people. Making communication between Belarus and Lithuania more difficult may affect the pro-European attitudes of the democratically minded people of Belarus,“ she warned.

A Free Belarusians march will take place in Vilnius on Friday afternoon to mark the fourth anniversary of mass demonstrations that began in Minsk after the presidential election. In Cathedral Square, Belarusians fighting against the repressive Lukashenko regime will gather for a rally before to the Belarusian Memorial, where they will pay tribute to their fallen compatriots.

Over the past four years the Lukashenko regime has repressed at least 50,000 people for political reasons and expelled hundreds of thousands of democratically-minded Belarusians from the country, organisers said.