Belarusian writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature Svitlana Alexievich warns that the death of Alexei Navalny “opened the abyss of permissiveness for dictators all over the world” and showed that President Vladimir Putin is capable of anything, reports Meduza.

Aleksievich, however, expressed hope that after Navalny’s death, which was announced by the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service last Friday, “the world will understand that Putin, like Hitler, is capable of dragging the world into a world war.” “It won’t stop,” she warned.

“Today the whole world is in mourning. I looked at the news feed and there were reactions from all over the world: politicians, writers, musicians. Everyone is stunned. Of course, it is a shock because of the cruelty that we have allowed. Evil has grown so much that it does what we could not even imagine, although we knew the nature of such power,” she said in a long interview with the Belarusian newspaper “Nasha Niva”.

She also recalled the plight of dissidents in Belarus imprisoned by Alexander Lukashenko’s regime following the outbreak of large-scale protests following the August 2020 presidential election.

“The worst thing for Belarus is that we have almost two thousand political prisoners and our leaders are also there [în închisoare]. Maybe someone is sitting in a cell now. There is no information from Masha Kolesnikova, Viktor Babaryka. We know nothing about Mykola Statkevich. And it seems that at any moment we can find out the most terrible things about them,” the Belarusian writer lamented.

The Nobel laureate says the world will pay a “much higher” price if it does not help Ukraine

“Dictators learn from each other. Navalny’s death opened an abyss of permissiveness for dictators all over the world, and even more so here in Belarus. Now we can expect anything. The authorities received such permission. It turns out that they can do everything, and the world will be powerless. This is the worst,” Svitlana Aleksievich warned.

“We have to help Ukraine as much as possible, otherwise we will have to pay a higher price. A new Hitler with new technology will be worse than what we know from history,” she said, referring to President Vladimir Putin.

“This person is cruel. He is a KGB officer, not a politician. Therefore, you can expect anything from him,” the Nobel laureate also warned. However, she says that Navalny’s death in prison is more evidence that Putin is afraid.

“It may seem impossible to kill the main opponent, the opponent, the politician. A strong personality does not allow this. She appreciates a strong opponent. And the weak do what we see,” she said.

Svitlana Aleksievich fled Belarus due to fear of Lukashenka’s repressions

Aleksievich was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015 for his “polyphonic work, memory of the suffering and courage of our age,” according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the prestigious awards.

In her first comments since the Royal Academy of Sciences announcement, she condemned Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.

A well-known Belarusian opposition figure, she supported protests against Alexander Lukashenko in 2020, when her arrest was feared. In September 2020, the heads of several diplomatic missions in Minsk, including the Romanian ambassador to Belarus, came to her home together to express solidarity with the writer.

Aleksievich finally left Belarus at the end of September. The Nasha Niva newspaper, which published an interview with her, also operates outside the Lukashenko-led country after its journalists were raided by the authorities in 2021.

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