OSLO.- An adviser to the Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelensky, Mykhailo Podolyak, today questioned the Norwegian Committee for the election of the Nobel Peace Prize winners, two human rights organizations -one from Russia and the other from Ukraine- and an imprisoned activist in Belarus, a message that is interpreted as a condemnation of the Kremlin, more than six months after the invasion.
“The Nobel Committee has an interesting understanding of the word ‘peace’ if representatives of two countries that attacked a third receive the Nobel Prize together. Neither Russian nor Belarusian organizations were able to organize resistance to the war”, tweeted this morning Podolyak, one of the most recognized voices outside the Zelensky government. “This year’s Nobel Prize is ‘impressive,’” he completed.
With a highly symbolic election in favor of “peaceful coexistence” The Nobel Peace Prize awarded this Friday to a trio of civil society representatives from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, three of the main actors in the Ukrainian conflict.
The award was given to the imprisoned Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski, to the Russian NGO Memorial – whose dissolution was ordered by the Russian authorities – and Center for Civil Liberties from Ukraine.
“The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to honor three outstanding banners of human rights, democracy and peaceful coexistence in the three neighboring countries of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine,” said its chair, Berit Reiss-Andersen.
As the experts expected, the Nobel committee wanted to send a message against the war in Ukraine, which has plunged Europe into the most serious security crisis since the Second World War.
However, the five members of the Nobel committee avoided directly criticizing the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, which began the invasion of Ukraine on February 24 and celebrates its 70th birthday this Friday.
“This award is not directed against Vladimir Putin, neither for his birthday nor in any other sense, except for the fact that his government, like the government of Belarus, represents an authoritarian government that represses human rights activistsReiss-Andersen stated.
Reiss-Andersen urged Belarus to release Ales Bialiatski, founding president of the Human Rights Defense Center Viasna (“Spring”), imprisoned since 2021, following the massive demonstrations the previous year against the re-election of the president Alexander Lukashenko -Putin’s ally-, considered fraudulent by Western countries.
“Our message is to urge the Belarusian authorities to release Bialiatski and we hope that will happen and that he can come to Oslo and receive the award,” Reiss-Andersen said. “But there are thousands of political prisoners in Belarus and I fear that my wish may not be very realistic.”
Hours later, the Lukashenko government also reacted: “In recent years, decisions – and we are talking about the Peace Prize – have been so politicized that Alfred Nobel [fundador de los premios] he’s turning in his grave”, the spokesman for the Belarusian diplomacy, Anatoli Glaz, wrote on Twitter.
In a previous message this Friday, Podolyak also criticized the former German chancellor Angela Merkel about his recent statements about the future of the war.
“Pure hypocrisy. Russia invaded Ukraine, destroys cities, organizes mass executions, threatens the world with weapons of mass destruction if it does not allow genocide and annexation. It seems that everything is clear, but Mrs. Merkel comes out and says: ‘there will be no peace without Russia. How to stop it?”, wrote the presidential adviser.
Merkel, who was chancellor from 2005 until last December, said on Thursday that Europe can achieve lasting peace only with Russia’s involvement.
AFP agency
THE NATION