Maxim Znak: Tikhanovskaya and I went to file a complaint in Yermoshina's office — but Yermoshina wasn't there
Mid-conversation, he was tricked into an adjacent room. And wasn't allowed back in.
Former political prisoner Maxim Znak, in a new episode of "Tok", recounted details of the events of August 10, 2020, at the Central Election Commission — the day after which Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya left Belarus.
According to him, on that day, he, along with Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Maria Kalesnikava, and other representatives of the headquarters, came to the Central Election Commission to file a complaint about the election results. Initially, Tsikhanouskaya was invited into the building alone, but she refused to go without a lawyer and her team.
"She was invited alone, she said: I won't go without a lawyer. There was a discussion, but eventually, I was allowed in with her," Znak recalls.
They headed to the office of the CEC chairperson, Lidia Yermoshina, to personally hand over the complaint.
"I even suggested submitting it through the chancery, but we were told: no, it must be in person.
We entered Yermoshina's office — but she wasn't there. There were completely different people," he says.
Maxim Znak
Znak spent the first part of the meeting with Tsikhanouskaya. According to him, the conversation started quite calmly and seemed like an attempt to "discuss the situation".
"They said that the situation was difficult now, and we needed to talk. And, honestly, at that moment it might have seemed that the conversation would be about some kind of dialogue — how to stop the violence that was happening in the first days after the elections, and to punish those responsible," he noted.
However, he was soon asked to leave the office — supposedly to put away his phone.
"It looked quite natural: as if to avoid eavesdropping. I went out — and then they closed the entrance back to me," Znak recounted.
He then remained in an adjacent room, where he spent several hours while the conversation continued.
"I was there all the time. The choice was simple: either stay and understand what was happening, or try to escalate the situation and end up God knows where. I decided to stay — at least to be sure that there was no physical violence," he said.
According to Znak, everything looked "more or less normal" until a certain point, but the situation changed when the door closed and people appeared near it.
"Until the door closed and two people stood in front of it, everything looked quite ordinary. And then it became clear that we had fallen into a trap — and we were simply separated," he noted.
Znak says that the head of the Operational-Analytical Center, Andrei Pavlyuchenko, and the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Gennady Kazakevich, were present in the office.
Znak emphasized that although the tone of the conversation was outwardly polite, the situation itself seemed abnormal.
"When you come into a woman's office, and there are two men there and they start trying to convince her of something — that in itself is abnormal," he said.
The conversation lasted several hours.
"They offered me a seat. I said: 'No, I'll stand.' They stood, I stood, we waited. At one point, Znak noticed a video operator entering the building.
"Then it became clear that the negotiations were over — but these were not the negotiations we expected," he noted.
After that, Tsikhanouskaya left the office.
"We hugged, said goodbye. She said she had to leave — without details. I understood that there are situations where there simply is no choice," Znak recalls.
Shortly after, Tsikhanouskaya was taken out of the country. Znak himself, after leaving the CEC building, went to recount what had happened.
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