Lithuania will not satisfy the request of the Prosecutor General's Office of Belarus to extradite Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. This was stated by the head of the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry Gabrielius Landsbergis. His comment was published on the agency's website.

Lithuania has been and will be a stone wall behind which all democratic forces persecuted by the regimes will find refuge. In this way, anyone who has taken refuge in Lithuania can feel safe that they will not be handed over to the regimes, neither because of their fight for democracy, nor because of the fight for freedom of speech or religion. And we can say to the Belarusian regime: hell will freeze over before we start considering your demands.

On March 5, the Prosecutor General's Office of Belarus announced that it had sent a request to Lithuania for the extradition of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya "in order to bring to justice for crimes against the order of government, public security and the state."
A few days earlier, the Investigative Committee of Belarus posted a video in which Tikhanovskaya and her associates discuss plans to seize administrative buildings in Gomel. Tikhanovskaya stated that the moment was cut from the video when she said that she supported only peaceful protests and left the office.
Tikhanovskaya participated in the presidential elections in Belarus in August 2020 and left for Lithuania immediately after them. She said that the security forces forced her to leave Belarus, threatening her with a prison. In Belarus, several criminal cases were opened against Tikhanovskaya, and her husband Sergei is also in a pre-trial detention center.

“Hell will freeze over soon.” Lithuania refused to extradite Svetlana Tikhanovskaya to Belarus