Belarusian detained in Georgia was deported to Armenia, where he was also detained

Lev Mikheev, a Belarusian citizen detained in Georgia on the morning of September 25, has been transported to the border with Armenia and is now on the Armenian side, where he was also detained, as he is on the wanted list at the request of the Belarusian authorities. The political refugee, who had been awaiting asylum since 2021, told "Pozirk" about this himself.

"I tried to carry out the standard procedure for replacing an ID card today. I took care of this in advance and started the procedure almost a month ago. I came to the Migration Department (in Martkopi village, about 30 km from the capital Tbilisi) and wrote an application. They accepted it with a photograph and told me to come back in two weeks for a decision, as was usually the case," said Mikheev.

When two weeks passed, he came again, but the scenario was unexpected: "They let me in, seated me in a chair, and nothing happened for a long time. Finally, employees appeared and said I needed to go with them to Tbilisi for an interview."

"They immediately put me in a car. I only managed to send a short message to [human rights activist] Roman [Kisliak] when they took my phone. Practically, from that moment on, I was in the status of a detainee," the Belarusian emphasized.

He noted that in Tbilisi, he was held in an office for about two hours, waiting for an interpreter. "A case manager for my issue appeared and said that I was illegal, that my document, my ID card, whose validity period had not yet expired, had no meaning at all," the activist described the situation.

Mikheev was offered two options: "to be thrown out of Georgia in handcuffs" or to leave voluntarily, choosing where to go himself, even to Belarus. He refused to return to his homeland because "he sought asylum precisely because he was persecuted in his homeland." The activist asked for a little time, at least until the temporary identity certificate expired (October 9), but the Georgian security forces refused.

"They moved me from office to office. A doctor came, stripped me to my underwear — it was some kind of horror. Then we went home, I packed some things, and we went to the department. Then they brought me here (to the border) in a prisoner transport and threw me out," the Belarusian said.

According to Mikheev, he chose Armenia himself. There was no deportation court; he was "forced to sign many papers" in Georgian, the meaning of which he did not understand.

"I realized that they are simply crazy here. It's difficult to argue with them about anything. Let it be Armenia. And the process started, spun," Mikheev explained.

At the Armenian border, he was detained because he is in the interstate wanted list of CIS countries at Minsk's request. Yerevan, which has set a course for rapprochement with the European Union, does not extradite individuals persecuted for political reasons.

Belarusian human rights activist Roman Kisliak, who resides in Georgia and has been trying to obtain international protection for several years, told "Pozirk" that he had been trying all day to get information about Mikheev's whereabouts from the Georgian authorities. To do this, he contacted the Migration Department, and when they refused to provide information, he contacted the police.

"I called the 112 service, which is a general emergency service, and reported that a person had disappeared. I received a call from the criminal police, they asked for his documents, and started searching. Perhaps this even accelerated the process of his deportation, because it was at this time that he began to be moved from cell to cell. We didn't know that," Kisliak noted.

"While we were looking for Lev, he was held incommunicado, without contact with the outside world. It was effectively a forced disappearance. It was not prolonged, but he was absolutely deprived of his rights. He was not given the opportunity to contact lawyers, or to receive legal protection, he was forcibly deported," the human rights activist emphasized.

According to his information, it only now became clear that back in July, the appellate court had made some decision regarding Mikheev's case, possibly concerning deportation.

"We haven't seen the decisions and, of course, we will clarify all of this. Georgia is unfortunately becoming an even more lawless state than it was before," Kisliak stated.

Georgia, ruled since 2012 by the "Georgian Dream" party of pro-Russian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, has not satisfied a single asylum request from Belarusian citizens. In the first half of 2026, 24 Belarusians were expelled from the country. Possible reasons: exceeding the period of stay (no more than 365 consecutive days), an expired passport (impossible to exchange at the embassy due to Alexander Lukashenka's discriminatory decree of September 4, 2023), committing a crime.

This June, a Belarusian — a former political prisoner (name not disclosed) — was for the first time deported from Georgia to Armenia.

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