Statkevich shook the cage, the judge laughed, "The Walls" played. Ihar Losik recounted how the "Tsikhanouski case" defendants were tried

Six years ago, on May 29, 2020, in Hrodna, blogger and author of the YouTube channel "Country for Life" Siarhei Tsikhanouski, his associates, and random bystanders were detained during an election rally. The authorities staged a provocation involving a woman engaged in prostitution and the fall of police officer Uladzimir Kazlouski to the ground. Immediately after that, security forces began detaining people in Savetskaya Square. This was the first large-scale detention in the election campaign, which later grew into a series of criminal cases and showed how the authorities would take revenge on their opponents.

The trial of Siarhei Tsikhanouski began in June 2021. It lasted for six months in a closed regime at Pre-trial Detention Center No. 3 in Homel. Along with Tsikhanouski, his videographer Artsiom Sakau, social media moderator of "Country for Life" Dzmitry Papou, politician Mikalai Statkevich, bloggers Ihar Losik and Uladzimir Tsyhanovich were tried. The defendants in the case ultimately received sentences ranging from 14 to 18 years in prison.

Tsikhanouski and Losik have already been released thanks to negotiations between the American side and the Lukashenka regime. Statkevich was released after his refusal to leave Belarus and a serious illness. Sakau, Papou, and Tsyhanovich remain behind bars.

In general, more people can be included in the so-called "Tsikhanouski case," who were tried in small groups or individually in different places at different times.

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Ihar Losik, Siarhei Tsikhanouski, Mikalai Statkevich, Uladzimer Tsyhanovich, Artsiom Sakau, Dzmitry Papou

"They didn't know what to do with us"

Radio Svaboda network journalist and founder of the Telegram channel "Belarus Golovnogo Mozga" Ihar Losik was one of the defendants in the "Tsikhanouski case." He was detained on June 25, 2020, and sentenced to 15 years in a reinforced regime colony. Ihar spent more than five years behind bars, almost half of that time incommunicado, when even close relatives knew nothing about him. Ihar Losik was released and forcibly deported from Belarus in September 2025.

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Ihar Losik

"No one understood this: neither the lawyers, nor the prosecutors, it seems, nor us," Ihar answers the question of why the six of them ended up in the same trial. "I never met Tsikhanouski, didn't know him, the same with Statkevich. I didn't even cross paths with Tsyhanovich or Sakau online."

Losik explains that the criminal case materials stated that Tsikhanouski and Statkevich allegedly conspired in 2019 and planned to overthrow the government in Belarus a year later.

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Siarhei Tsikhanouski two weeks after his release, July 9, 2025

Initially, Vital Shklyarau, an American political technologist from Homel, was also involved in the case, Ihar continues. According to the prosecution, he was considered the main organizer of the conspiracy who attracted Tsikhanouski, Statkevich, and others to his plans. Shklyarau was detained in July 2020 and released in October of the same year "after a phone call from US Secretary of State Pompeo."

"First, the case was linked to Shklyarau. And when he was released, they began to rewrite the criminal case and made Statkevich the main figure," our interlocutor recalls.

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Mikalai Statkevich in court (left in blue shirt). Summer 2021

According to Losik, bloggers and people associated with popular social media channels were included in the case because representatives of the regime feared Telegram channels and "began to hunt them down" after Lukashenka's statement: "They think we won't get them. If needed, we will." The authorities also decided to attribute responsibility for organizing protests to the administrators of Telegram channels Nexta, "Belarus Golovnogo Mozga," "Maya Kraina Belarus," and others.

"They (those who initiated the criminal case) fabricated that in June 2019 — they just picked this date out of thin air — everything was allegedly organized into a single information network, which was led by Statkevich, and through Statkevich, by Tsikhanouski," the journalist says.

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Uladzimir Kniha in court

Investigators considered a few seconds of the blogger's stream, where he advertised these channels and advised subscribing to them, as proof of Tsikhanouski's connection with Telegram channel admins, says Losik.

Initially, Sciapan Putsila, administrator of the Nexta channel, was also in the case. But since he was in Poland, he was not detained. Later, Putsila's case was singled out into a separate proceeding and he was tried in absentia.

From the beginning, dozens of detained people were included in the "Tsikhanouski case," the interlocutor recalls. He personally saw about twenty surnames of defendants in the first case materials: Pavel Seviarynets, Yauhen Afnahel, Uladzimir Kniha, Andrei Voinich, Dzmitry Furmanau, Aliaksandr Kabanau, Siarhei Pietrukhin. All of them were accused of organizing the rally in Hrodna on May 29, 2020. Losik notes that he himself was not in Hrodna that day.

"Even before and after the elections, they didn't know what to do with us. And they crammed everyone into one case," says Losik.

However, in the spring of 2021, the case began to be hastily closed, the interlocutor recalls, again after Lukashenka's words that it needed to be finished. Many defendants began to be divided into groups according to unknown criteria. Pavel Seviarynets and Andrei Voinich ended up in the group of members of "European Belarus." In Hrodna, Dzmitry Furmanau, who was collecting signatures for Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, was tried. Along with him — former riot policeman and volunteer of Tsikhanouskaya's team Uladzimir Kniha (he had already had his six-year sentence extended three times for allegedly "malicious disobedience to the demands of the colony administration") and Yauhen Raznichanka, who caught police officer Kazlouski when he fell. Separately in Hrodna, the driver of the "Country for Life" camper van, Aliaksandr Aranovich, was tried. Brest bloggers Aliaksandr Kabanau and Siarhei Pietrukhin were tried in Mahilou.

"It made more sense for Kabanau to be in Tsikhanouski's group, as he coordinated the collection of signatures for Tsikhanouskaya, was in the headquarters," Losik reasons.

"They printed out the entire internet"

The materials of the "Tsikhanouski case" comprised almost 180 volumes.

"My lawyer and I think this was the largest case; they needed to shift responsibility for 2020 onto someone, so they had to show that there were many, many volumes," says Losik.

When Ihar Losik familiarized himself with the case materials in the spring of 2021, there were more and more of them every day.

"They printed out the entire internet, whatever existed. In one year, they downloaded all posts from all opposition Telegram channels and chats, especially those with '97%' in their name: 'Kalinkavichy 97%', 'Zhlobin 97%.' They printed about sixty volumes of this nonsense. Allegedly, Tsikhanouski was creating such a network — all with the same name. Although many channels were created after Tsikhanouski was already detained," Ihar comments on the case content.

A significant part of the case materials was dedicated to Tsikhanouski himself.

"His entire life is there. Photos, videos from his wedding. When he was 13, it seems, he allegedly stole 10 rubles from a classmate. They found those large house registers somewhere and attached them to this case," Losik recounts.

Several dozens of volumes contained transcripts of Tsikhanouski's streams.

"With Google's auto-translator (referring to automatic audio transcription to text). Everything was 'crooked' there," he recalls.

Ihar Losik notes that only two volumes were dedicated to him. They collected appeals, bank account statements, petitions for him, photocopies of letters, postcards, icons that people sent him already in prison. For example, the case materials contained a photocopy of an icon of Saint George the Victorious and a postcard with a short inscription: "Greetings from Brest."

"Just to fill it with some papers. That way the volume looked thicker," Ihar explains why strange things were added to his case.

No expert examination was conducted on Losik's posts to confirm that he violated anything. But "hostility" was found in several reposts to the "BGM" channel from the Nexta channel in August 2020, when Ihar was already behind bars. Moreover, the "BGM" channel itself did not feature in the accusation, the blogger notes.

"During the six months of the trial, the judge spent 5-7 minutes on my volumes, and about three minutes on Sakau's, because there was nothing there. The court considered his cap, mug, and stickers with the inscription 'Strana dlya zhizni' (Country for Life) as instruments of his crime," recalls the defendant in the "Tsikhanouski case."

According to Losik, the Academy of Sciences conducted expert examinations of Tsyhanovich's channel content, concluding that "no calls or incitement to hostility were found" in it.

"When the prosecutor read this during the debates, he simply said that, according to the expert reports, all of this exists. Although there was nothing there," the journalist recalls.

Ihar Losik calls the case absurd. In his opinion, 0% of it corresponded to reality. He emphasizes that many defendants were not previously acquainted with each other and no one planned anything. According to Losik, the case materials also contained no evidence of anyone's guilt or confirmation that the accomplices planned anything.

"I think even my lawyer won't be able to say what we were accused of, because the accusation was constructed in such a way that it was impossible to understand. There were sentences that stretched for two pages," Ihar summarizes.

"Calls for Islamic fundamentalism"

The process took place in the assembly hall of Pre-trial Detention Center No. 3 in Homel, where all the defendants were held. It ran four days a week for six months. Relatives and observers were not allowed to attend. Only for the first session and the verdict were employees of state propaganda media allowed. Ihar Losik believes the process was closed so that no one would see its absurdity.

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Driveway to Homel Pre-trial Detention Center No. 3 on the day the trial of bloggers and politicians began

"It was, on one hand, humiliating. After the morning check and breakfast, I was taken to the lower floor. Every morning I had to strip naked, squat. They shined lights into all body parts, checking to make sure we had nothing. They were afraid that no one would attempt suicide, because at the trial we were even given rubber pen tips. When led to the assembly hall, we were handcuffed, bent over (torso tilted downwards)," Ihar recalls.

He notes that it was difficult, but better than sitting in a cell, because during breaks they could talk to the defendants, lawyers, and even discuss news. Ihar says he took crosswords with him to the trial and solved them, because he was rarely mentioned in the case; Artsiom Sakau drew something. The defendants sat in a cage. Except for the beginning and end of the process, their handcuffs were removed in the cage, Ihar recalls.

None of the defendants in the "Tsikhanouski case" pleaded guilty in court. Some refused to give testimony during the investigation. Mikalai Statkevich shouted "Long Live Belarus!" in court. He was eventually removed from the proceedings on the third day, "because he was shaking the cage," "didn't want to participate in this." Statkevich was only brought back for the closing arguments and the sentencing. "Tsikhanouski read his testimony for about three days. He took every sentence of the accusation and appealed it. But no one took anything into account," Ihar recalls.

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Mikalai Statkevich

For some time, the prosecutor very slowly read those 60 volumes containing posts from opposition chats. As a result, the judge got angry and adjourned the court for a day because the prosecution was familiarizing themselves with the case materials on the spot, not beforehand, recalls the former political prisoner.

"In court, he would point his finger, 15 minutes of silence — and then he would find some post from a chat: 'We need to visit Yarmoshyna,' an old date, a user. He'd read it out. Then another 15 minutes would pass, he'd look for a new one. That's how the first day passed, and the second. And on the third day, it seems, the judge finally got angry, because we all laughed," Ihar says.

During the process, the defendants generally laughed quite a lot, Ihar notes. The thing that made even the judge laugh was the expert reports in the case materials. They were all allegedly done by the same person.

"His surname was Simanau. He had no first name, no patronymic, no experience, no place of work. All expert reports were identical. They found calls for 'Islamic fundamentalism,' 'jihadism,' and 'war with infidels' in Tsikhanouski's words. They simply took a Russian expert report as a template, because the article 'for inciting hostility' was first used in Russia, and they forgot to cross out that paragraph," the interlocutor explains.

Ihar later saw similar expert reports, "word for word," in some political prisoners in the "Zeltser case."

What else caused laughter was when, during the trial, Tsikhanouski's streams were reviewed on a projector at full volume, and on the recording, he sang "Razbury turmy mury" (Destroy the Prison Walls).

"We're sitting in prison. And everyone on the floor hears this, and the OMON, and the judge, and the prosecutor. It was just some kind of surrealism," recalls the former political prisoner.

Ihar admits that he himself was curious to attend the trial to hear — maybe Siarhei Tsikhanouski "was really preparing something." But he became convinced that there "was nothing" against him.

Павялічыць

During the trial in the "Tsikhanouski case," the defendants were guarded by about five convoy officers near the cage and about five in the corridor

"The convoy officers who guarded us — there were many OMON members there — treated us harshly for the first month, bent us over, didn't answer, roared. But they sat themselves, listened to this process every day, and then they realized that none of us were guilty. Then their attitude completely changed. They started talking, joking, didn't tighten the handcuffs, didn't force us to the floor when they led us. It was clear that they themselves understood everything," Ihar Losik recalls.

Three of the six defendants remain behind bars: Russian citizen Dzmitry Papou, videographer Artsiom Sakau, and blogger Uladzimir Tsyhanovich. Ihar Losik said that they are being "heavily pressured."

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46-year-old Tsyhanovich, who was initially sentenced to 15 years in a colony, has already been additionally sentenced three times for allegedly "malicious disobedience to the demands of the colony administration" (Article 411 of the Criminal Code, under which the term can be extended indefinitely). He is also frequently transferred and has already been in nine places of detention. Currently in Zhodzina prison.

31-year-old Sakau was sentenced to 16 years. He spent three years in prison regime. He is in Shklou colony No. 17.

34-year-old Papou received 16 years in a colony. He is in Zhodzina prison.

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