Supreme Court upholds sentence for former Intex-Press director Uladzimir Yanukevich and changes term for his deputy

Former heads of the Baranavichy news portal BAR24, and previously — the independent newspaper Intex-Press, Andrei Pakalenka and Uladzimir Yanukevich. Collage: BAJ

As a result of the two-day hearing, the judicial panel of the Supreme Court upheld the sentence for Uladzimir Yanukevich — 14 years of imprisonment to be served in a penal colony.

Andrei Pakalenka's prison term was reduced by one year — to 11 years.

The verdict for Uladzimir Yanukevich and Andrei Pakalenka was announced in the Brest Regional Court on February 26, 2026. Both media managers were accused of "treason against the state" under Article 356 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus.

The trial began on February 3, 2026, and was held in a closed session. The case was presided over by Judge Dzmitry Kurovski of the Brest Regional Court.

Uladzimir Yanukevich was sentenced by the court to 14 years of imprisonment and a fine of 3000 base units (135 thousand rubles) payable to the state, while Andrei Pakalenka received 12 years of imprisonment and a fine of 1000 base units (45 thousand rubles). There is also information about a huge total recovery amount of about 200 thousand rubles.

The essence of the accusation is still unknown.

Yanukevich and Pakalenka have been held in a pre-trial detention center for over a year and a half since their detention.

The case of Uladzimir Yanukevich and Andrei Pakalenka

Uladzimir Yanukevich is 65 years old. He was the director and editor-in-chief of the largest independent regional newspaper Intex-Press. Andrei Pakalenka, 44, worked there as deputy director for development. After the publication was liquidated, they, together with the team, created the news website BAR24 (bar24.by).

In December 2024, employees of the new city portal were detained. On December 3, law enforcement officers conducted searches at their homes and in the editorial office, seizing equipment. Several people were released, while criminal cases under Article 361-4 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus ("Assistance to extremist activities") were initiated against six detainees, who were placed in a pre-trial detention center, by order of the Brest Prosecutor's Office.

The BAR24 website was last updated on December 8, 2024. On January 9, 2025, it was still accessible to visitors, but from January 13, 2025, it stopped opening and showed a "Web-сайт bar24.by временно не обслуживается" (Website bar24.by is temporarily unavailable) message.

On November 11, 2025, the names of four convicted BAR24 employees, created by the former Intex-Press team — Natallia Semianovich, Nikita Piatrouski, Ruslan Raviaka, and Liudmila Zeliankova — were added to the "List of persons involved in 'extremist' activities," compiled by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus. All four were sentenced on August 19, 2025, to "home chemistry" — restriction of liberty without placement in a correctional facility, with the obligation to comply with the requirements of a special regime.

Павялічыць

Uladzimir Yanukevich. Photo: Intex-press

The editorial office of the independent newspaper Intex-press faced problems in its work after the presidential elections of 2020.

In May 2021, the Ministry of Information sent a written warning. The document stated that an interview with Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, published in the newspaper on April 14, was recognized as "extremist information products," and demanded that "committed violations" be corrected.

Also, on May 4, the editorial office received a letter from Tatiana Zinevich, director of the Brest branch of "Belsayuzdruk" GROUP, stating that from May 5, 2021, the enterprise would terminate the cooperation agreement and stop selling the newspaper. Retail chains also refused to sell it. RUE "Belposhta" excluded the independent Baranavichy publication from its subscription catalog.

Uladzimir Yanukevich, director of "Publishing House Intex-press" LLC, was twice tried and fined under the Code of Administrative Offenses for publishing the Tsikhanouskaya interview.

On February 15, 2023, law enforcement officers visited "Publishing House Intex-press" LLC with an order to inspect the premises.

During the inspection, system units, a camera, laptops, including employees' personal laptops, as well as computer equipment from the accounting and advertising departments, were seized. The next day, a correspondent of the publication, who had previously been summoned for an interview with the police, was detained.

On April 29, 2023, at the initiative of the prosecutor's office, the court of Baranavichy district and the city of Baranavichy recognized the website intex-press.by, as well as the Intex-Press pages on social networks Odnoklassniki, Instagram, Twitter, VKontakte, Facebook, TikTok, Telegram, and the YouTube channel, as "extremist materials."

On May 4, 2023, Belarusian authorities restricted access to the popular Baranavichy online publication. This was done by order of the prosecutor of the Brest region, Viktor Klimov, and the reason for this decision was allegedly numerous violations by this media of the Law "On Mass Media." As the information service of the Brest regional prosecutor's office then claimed, "the specified portal repeatedly published information that clearly negatively characterized the socio-political situation in the country after the completion of the election campaign and discredited the activities of state and law enforcement agencies."

In early June 2025, the state TV channel ONT aired a two-part report by Ihar Tur about the raid by security forces on the editorial offices of independent regional media, including BAR24. The media were accused of cooperating with the German embassy, which was also accused of financing "extremist" resources (at the time of the publication of the materials within the framework of cooperation with the embassy, none of the media mentioned in the video had been included in the list of "extremist" ones). The report showed an interrogation of a BAR24 employee.

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