Dentist from Orsha revealed that special services offered her to return from the USA to Belarus. She replied

Natalia Kukisheva, a dentist from Orsha who moved to the USA after imprisonment in Belarus, recorded a video in which she revealed that she was contacted and offered to return home and "live a dignified life".

"But I know what dignity looks like to them and what it smells like," Natalia says. And she tells her story about this "dignified life".

"When we were detained, for the first two months they mocked us as much as they could, inventing all sorts of 'entertainment'. And then one day they told us that we wouldn't have water. They explained it by saying that some repair work was being carried out in Zhodino, and there would be no water in the prison," she recounts.

There was nowhere to get water, and from around half past six in the morning until eight in the evening, there was no water in the cell.

"The cell — 14 women, the cell is small, the toilet is a hole in the floor. Well, everyone uses the toilet anyway, it's a natural need, and there's no escaping it. Imagine a public toilet at some event, and people go there all day, and you decide to enter in the evening. Well, the smells were probably even worse, because that toilet was ventilated, but our cell was completely closed and had no ventilation. I think by evening our eyes started to sting," she recounts.

And then one day, there was a big inspection at the prison in Zhodino.

"Imagine what it looked like from the cell: they told us to line up — we lined up. The door opens. A man enters our cell — very important, epaulets, medals, chest out. And he takes a step into the cell... And, in short, it was like in a movie. He jumped out, I don't know how, as if he was twenty years old and a world-class jumper. Because it's one thing to tell people about order and how worthless they are, and another thing to inhale the smell of one's own moral choice," she says.

And five minutes later, the water was already supplied. So, the water was there.

"And now they tell me, 'come, you will live with dignity.' So I would like to ask that boss who entered our cell that day: 'When you opened the cell door, what did you smell? The smell of your own dignity or the smell of my humiliation?'" — Natalia addressed that boss from the USA.

Natalia Kukisheva was detained by KGB officers in the autumn of 2021 in connection with the "Zeltser case". But she was sentenced to two years in a penal colony for comments about Lukashenka.

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