00:00Let me ask one question and then we'll recognize as many people as possible.
00:08This hearing is about consequences of a bad peace deal.
00:15I think a bad peace deal would include a deal that somehow attempted to suggest that Russian-speaking
00:29portions of Ukraine naturally because of that would prefer to be dominated by Russia rather
00:41than governed by their own national government.
00:47How do we accurately assess for world public opinion the feeling of these people?
00:59Many of these areas of Ukraine, they're occupied now by the Russian government and by the Russian
01:07army.
01:09My position is that doesn't mean they want to be.
01:13They were close to the Russian border and they've been conquered temporarily, occupied
01:20at least temporarily by a large invading army.
01:29Ms. Louvakova, you mentioned that a large majority of people in Belarus do not wish to be dominated
01:43by Russia.
01:45So I'll start with you, but I'll take an answer from each of you.
01:50How do we measure in a convincing way the attitude of people that are currently being dominated
02:01by Russia in such a way as to convince leaders in our own country and public opinion makers
02:09around the world as to how these people actually desire to be governed?
02:16And I'll start with you, Ms. Louvakova.
02:20Yes, I think we need to press the microphone.
02:29Thank you so much.
02:30That's a very important question.
02:33So when it comes to Belarus, I think we've seen five years ago, in 2020, mass protests
02:38in Belarus, historic, the largest that we've ever had.
02:42Hundreds of thousands of people were on the streets, but they were met, they faced brutal
02:46repression, state terror, and we have a large number of political prisoners still today,
02:52and actually repression continues still today.
02:54People are being arrested on a daily basis.
02:57That means that the regime also feels that they have not given up, even though they cannot,
03:01of course, come out to the streets and show their resistance.
03:04That's clear because of fear and because of persecution.
03:08That's one thing.
03:09So let's remember that people resisted, despite the fact that Belarus is not a young dictatorship.
03:16That's been a dictatorship for three decades, and people have always been arrested in our
03:20country, and they still came out to the streets and protested.
03:24The second hard data that I have for you to prove that people of Belarus are resisting,
03:31they are against Lukashenko, and they are against being part of this war, of the invasion, is actually
03:36sociology, and that's still possible.
03:39The Chatham House, British think tank, published actually waves of surveys of Belarusians inside
03:45the country, and they consistently show that people are against Ukraine being attacked from
03:51the territory of Belarus, are against being part of the invasion, are against the deployment
03:56of nukes, right?
03:57So that's the data that we have, and I'm happy to share this and attach to my testimony.
04:02And then, of course, that's also the information coming from us journalists.
04:08We, independent media, are reaching many people inside the country on a daily basis, on a weekly
04:15basis.
04:16There's millions of people.
04:17People are still willing to get information.
04:19We have the numbers.
04:20We see that people still want that.
04:23And I think that's one of the best proof, also best evidence, that people have not given
04:28up.
04:29And I think another, perhaps the last data and the last figure in the information that I
04:34would share, the absolute majority of people, more than 95%, want Belarus to be independent.
04:40They don't want Belarus to be part of Russia.
04:42Again, that has been consistent for decades, and I think that's another important piece
04:47of information.
04:48Mr. Khabarov, you like that?
04:54Methodologically speaking, it's quite difficult to measure, in a convincing fashion, the sentiments
04:59of a people when they are under an oppressive regime.
05:03Only during times of war or occupation, because the system is so oppressive, it's really, really
05:08difficult to gauge the opinion of a people or their sentiments.
05:12But there are a few ways of looking at the developments in those situations.
05:16For example, when we look at Armenia, prior to the Velvet Revolution, it was dominated under
05:21a sort of a Russian puppet regime.
05:23And you had mass uprisings that overthrew that regime and had a democratic transition.
05:29So when you have organic movements led by a people against an authoritarian regime, these
05:34are all very clear indicators that, whereas previously we were not able to gauge convincingly
05:39proper sentiments, but subsequently the facts speak for themselves.
05:45In the regions of Ukraine that are now under the occupation of Russia, it is very, very difficult
05:51to convincingly demonstrate, that is, empirically demonstrate, in a percentile sense, what the
05:58sentiment of the people will be.
06:00But we could look at Euromaidan and see how popular it was throughout Ukraine, even in the
06:06Russian-speaking areas.
06:07So in that context, we do have precedent that we could rely on, which can allow us to understand
06:12and observe the extent to which no people want to be under the yoke of oppression.
06:17In the case of the Ukrainian, Russian-speaking population that finds itself under Russian
06:22occupation, if we observe what their behavior was, what their sentiments were during Euromaidan,
06:28which is highly supportive of getting rid of Russia's influence, that I think stands and
06:33even could be increased exponentially in understanding where these individuals, these people stand.
06:44Thank you, Senator Worker.
06:46I'll make a few brief observations.
06:49First, when it comes to Ukraine, I think it's important to recall that there are millions
06:54of Russian-speaking Ukrainians who have been ejected or have fled from Russian-occupied regions
07:01and would very much like to return.
07:03I think that's an important piece of information to consider when looking at kind of the white
07:09wider process.
07:10It's also true that we should look at Russia's actions in those regions and that Russia is
07:16actively colonizing those regions by settling Russians from Russia in those regions by, in
07:24some cases, literally building new apartment blocks over the rubble of Ukrainian cities.
07:30And it is requiring that those that do remain take Russian passports to adopt Russian curricula.
07:39So there is a settler colonial element to this as well that I think is very important.
07:44We cannot look at the composition of the present state of occupied Ukrainian territory in a snapshot,
07:53but rather look at it in the context of the situation.
07:56That's true of Moldova as well.
07:58In Transnistria, for example, it is a complex demographic environment where there are not only ethnic Russians,
08:05but also substantial ethnic Moldovan and ethnic Ukrainian minorities that have been under a period of repression for decades
08:14and have been normalized to a system of government, a repressive system of government, as well as an economic system that normalize a certain type of system.
08:26So being able to appreciate those things I think requires us to look at what Russia has done, is doing,
08:34and the ways by which it is artificially skewing the demographic composition of these places.
08:43And just one follow-up, Mr. Ceseri.
08:48For a Western government official to cite the bogus elections that were forced upon the people in eastern Ukraine is a grave mistake, is it not?
09:09Chairman Wicker, I cannot agree more with that statement.
09:14And I think that goes back to the point I was trying to articulate in that such elections, for one, are artificially,
09:23to the extent that they're even properly counting anything, they're doing so on a skewed demographic that has been heavily engineered by repression,
09:33and repression that has been engineered by Russia.
