Ex-political prisoner recounted what happened in 2020 at "Grodno Azot" and how he was driven to suicide in the colony

Former political prisoner Maksim Senik at a press conference in Vilnius. December 22, 2025. Photo: lookby.media

"Everyone exchanged glances, got scared, and decided to continue working"

Maksim Senik worked as an electrician at "Grodno Azot" and was an activist of an independent trade union. In 2023, he was sentenced to four years in a penal colony. At trial, the prosecution claimed that the man "succumbed to the influence of strike committee leaders" and "transmitted information about what was happening in the workshops to independent media."

However, it all started earlier — in August 2020. Maksim recalls that the atmosphere at the enterprise in those days was extremely tense. People felt deceived and openly expressed their indignation to the management, which tried to smooth things over.

"The first time we came out was on Friday, August 14, near the 'rubanauka', a dormitory building opposite the plant, to express our opinion. People were very agitated by what the management and authorities were doing. Everyone understood: Lukashenka, as usual, brazenly and vilely rigged his victory. The director, workshop chiefs, and their deputies were present at that spontaneous gathering, and they all heard that the people were against the deception."

According to Senik, the plant administration feared a complete halt in production, but even more so — publicity. The director tried to hold the second workers' meeting already on the plant's territory so that independent media journalists could not be present.

"But people began to riot and refused, stating that there would be no dialogue in a closed format. As a result, the director had to give in and agree to a meeting near the plant management building, where everyone could hear us," the interviewee recalls.

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Meeting of "Grodno Azot" workers near the enterprise building. Grodno, August 14, 2020. Photo: Tut.by

Despite people's dissatisfaction with the election results announced by the authorities and their anger over the harsh actions of the security forces, a strike at "Grodno Azot" did not happen. Maksim Senik says that the workers simply got scared.

"People found an excuse for themselves: we have families, children, loans, and if we stop production, we won't have anything to feed them with. There was also a technical fear: everyone understood that if the plant stopped, restarting it would be practically impossible or very difficult. No one wanted to take on such enormous responsibility, especially when the director openly asked: 'Who will answer for the consequences? I won't.' As a result, everyone just exchanged glances and decided to continue working, justifying it by saying that otherwise, we would be left without means of subsistence and would destroy the enterprise."

Nevertheless, not everyone gave up. Maksim himself took a short vacation to avoid going to work. Some of his colleagues tried to express dissatisfaction near the plant's checkpoint. But the security forces quickly dealt with such individuals.

"One of my colleagues after such an incident was like a zombie and stopped talking altogether," Senik recalls. "OMON officers drove people with batons from the checkpoint back into the plant, shouting: 'You are our food base, you must work for us.' My colleague was in such shock from this that he simply couldn't regain consciousness. It was horrible, I still start shaking when I recall those events and the state of my colleagues."

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Meeting of "Grodno Azot" workers near the enterprise building. Grodno, August 14, 2020. Photo: Tut.by

"You are a valuable person, we don't want you to be imprisoned"

Maksim says that while he was on vacation, one of the supervisors tried to influence him with persuasion.

"He came to my house, asked me to come out into the yard and talk," Senik claims. "I came out and he said directly: 'Are you aware that you are being watched? Guess who, three letters.' He started telling me that I don't smoke, don't drink, lead a healthy lifestyle, and always go to work, so he wouldn't want to part with me. He tried to convince me that he didn't want me to be imprisoned, so he asked me to listen to him and stop my activity. He said, 'I don't want you to sit [in prison], I need you at the plant, but if you don't stop, they will deal with you seriously.'"

For some time, Senik continued to work at "Grodno Azot," but, according to him, the situation there was getting worse. Workers were forbidden to bring phones into the workshops, there was constant control, and the management, without hesitation, threatened to hand over inconvenient workers to the security forces.

In early 2022, Maksim Senik decided to quit and leave the country. The man found work in Poland and wrote a resignation letter of his own free will, but the plant administration refused to sign it. They justified this by saying that Senik had a contract signed until 2026 and was obliged to work it out, otherwise he would be fired under an article.

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"Grodno Azot". Photo: "Vestnik Belnaftakhim"

Maksim was detained on November 15, 2022. That day he was at home, cleaning. When he went out to take out the trash, they were already waiting for him.

The security forces forced him back into the apartment, and a search began. Maksim hoped that his phone was clean — for safety purposes, he had gone to a specialist who had "reset" the device to factory settings.

"I was sure that I had deleted everything irreversibly. But when the phone was connected to equipment in the office (of the security forces. — Ed. note), everything appeared on the screen," he recalls. "During the interrogation, the investigator turned the computer monitor, to which my phone was connected, towards me. There were messages and photos of Russian military equipment movements that I had taken in the city: tanks crossing the bridge, cars without license plates, convoys. It turned out that even resetting to factory settings didn't help — they restored everything. At that moment, I realized that denial was pointless."

"They hit my kidneys so I wouldn't sleep"

On June 12, 2023, the Grodno Regional Court sentenced Maksim Senik to four years of imprisonment. The man was found guilty of insulting Lukashenka, as well as assisting the activities of an extremist organization.

In the pre-trial detention center (SIZO) and Bobruisk penal colony No. 2, Maksim faced severe trials. Due to anatomical peculiarities, the man snores loudly. In overcrowded cells and barracks, this became a reason for hatred from other inmates. The administration knew about the problem but used it as an additional tool to pressure the political prisoner, allowing others to torment him.

Maksim recalls that he had to choose between sleep and beatings.

"Because I snore loudly, people's nerves would snap, and they would start beating me so I wouldn't sleep. They would rip off my blanket and take it away so I would freeze, and when I tried to warm up and fell asleep again, the blows would repeat. They hit hard: on the kidneys, in the groin, in the stomach, on the legs. This happened regularly, and I was in a state of constant physical and psychological terror from my cellmates."

Another torment was the cold. The temperature in the colony squad rooms was low, and Maksim began to have serious kidney problems, which led to incontinence. It's hard for him to talk about it, but the man admits: instead of medical help, he faced cruelty.

"I asked the administration to transfer me to another squad. But even there, a real nightmare began: they started simply dousing me with water while I slept, and taking away my blanket so I couldn't get warm. Because of the cold, I caught a chill in my bladder and simply couldn't physically control myself, but no one cared. People didn't want to be understanding; for them, it was just an excuse to mock me," Maksim recounts with difficulty.

Due to constant conflicts with other inmates, Senik's nerves gave out, and he attempted suicide. He says he saw no other way out of the endless cycle of psychological abuse and physical suffering. But the system reacted to his cry for help purely bureaucratically — with new punishments.

"I had real attempts to take my own life: I cut my veins, but other convicts stopped me in time — literally grabbed my hands, didn't let me finish. The administration, instead of help or access to a psychologist, simply slapped additional 'prof-uliki' (professional records/violations) on me. First, I was assigned the status of being prone to destructive activity, and then another point was added — as prone to suicide and intentional self-harm."

Senik tried to elicit some reaction from the colony chief Yevgeny Bubich but only worsened the situation.

"He simply swore at me, saying: 'Get the f**k out of here, I don't want to see you.' He stated that he would not solve my problems, and if I didn't leave, he would simply put me in solitary confinement. I tried to explain that I would be killed or disabled in the squad, but Bubich didn't even listen, just kicked me out of his office with threats," the ex-political prisoner recalls his communication with the authorities.

"I was wet and thought they were taking me to be shot"

On December 13, 2025, Maksim Senik was suddenly ordered to pack his belongings and prepare to leave the colony. No reasons were given, which only heightened the stress.

"They led us to the checkpoint and held us for a long time in an icy room while we waited for the buses. I simply couldn't hold it and urinated right in my pants, but everyone didn't care. I rode in the bus wet, shaking from the cold, and I was convinced that this was the end. We didn't know the route, they hadn't returned our documents, so everyone thought they were taking us to the forest to be shot. The attitude was brutal until the very last moment," he recalls, shuddering.

Павялічыць

Released Belarusian political prisoners on a bus in Ukraine, December 13, 2025. Photo: "I Want to Live" project

When the bus crossed the border, the tension turned to shock. Maksim saw other released prisoners, including Maria Kalesnikava and Viktar Babaryka. He realized they were in Ukraine.

After the horrors of the colony, the attitude of the Ukrainians seemed unbelievable, the man recalls.

"They treated us very warmly, I didn't even expect such a thing," Senik says with a tremor in his voice. "Many thanks to the Ukrainians and personally to Volodymyr Zelenskyy for everything. After the border, we were transferred to Ukrainian buses, taken to a hospital near Chernihiv, where we could gather ourselves a bit and receive first aid. We stayed there for three days. From the hospital, we heard explosions, saw glows at night. We were often taken to the bomb shelter. We saw burned houses — both private and multi-story. You cannot imagine how painful and horrifying it is to look at."

Maksim is now in Vilnius, but admits he ended up there almost by chance. In the chaos of the release and due to a lack of communication with relatives and acquaintances, he could not coordinate his actions in time.

"I initially chose Poland, but then there was confusion, and I had to sign up for the list of those going to Lithuania. I was waiting for a call from people who were supposed to tell me how best to proceed, but communication appeared too late," the man says. "When I had already signed the papers for Lithuania, they finally called me and said that I should have gone to Warsaw, but I couldn't change anything anymore. Now I'm here, but I really hope I can move to Poland, because they are waiting for me there."

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