In his last battle, he covered others. Who was the Belarusian volunteer Vitali «Vitushka» Tryhubaŭ, killed in Ukraine?

A few days before the start of the full-scale war, Vitali Tryhubaŭ arrived in Vilnius. It seemed that after detentions, days in custody, and fleeing Belarus, his life could finally become safe. Friends helped him with a visa, and he began to settle into a new city. And then Russia attacked Ukraine.

«As soon as the war started, he wrote to me that he was going to Kyiv. Without the slightest hesitation. He couldn't act otherwise,» recalls Uladzimir Zhyhar from «Belpol».

Vitali, with the call sign «Vitushka», was among the first Belarusian volunteers who, in February 2022, set off in a convoy to defend Kyiv. He spent the next four and a half years at war. He served in the Belarusian units «Volat» and «Terror», later joining the Belarusian Volunteer Corps.

On October 19, 2026, 34-year-old Vitali Tryhubaŭ died during a combat mission. According to the Belarusian Volunteer Corps, in his last battle, he covered his brothers-in-arms from the Hatred battalion.

Cell No. 13

Uladzimir Zhyhar met Vitali in Zhodzina prison, in cell No. 13.

Uladzimir was brought there on August 11, 2020, when protests had already engulfed Belarus. Vitali Tryhubaŭ had been in the cell for several days: he had been preventively detained even before the elections. Therefore, Vitali and the other detainees did not know what had happened in the country on August 9. The newcomers told them about the elections, the beating of people, barricades, and thousands of Belarusians who took to the streets.

Vitali himself, recalls Uladzimir, understood that the authorities would not let him live peacefully until election day:

«He was a well-known activist of the «Malady Front» (Young Front) and knew that he would be detained under some fabricated pretext. And so it happened.»

At that time, Vitali Tryhubaŭ already had considerable experience with days in custody, trials, and administrative protocols. He was a member and secretary of the «Malady Front», participated in the campaign to defend Kurapaty, supported political prisoners, and observed elections.

In 2019, Tryhubaŭ was tried for participating in a «Malady Front» cycling event. In the same year, Vitali and Dzianis Urbanovich were fined for laying flowers at the Yanka Kupala monument. The police then saw this as an «unauthorized mass event».

In March 2020, a new protocol was drawn up for laying flowers at the building where the independence of the Belarusian People's Republic was declared in 1918. A photograph with the white-red-white flag was also considered a violation.

On May 31, 2020, Vitali Tryhubaŭ was detained after an election picket at Kamarouski Market. Along with him, security forces took activists Andrei Voinič and Maksim Viniarski, and even the taxi driver Vitali was riding with. But after another stint in custody, he repeatedly returned to activism.

«Once he got out after days in custody, he called me and said he had been held with Anatol Liabedzka,» Uladzimir Zhyhar recounts. «He was also in the center of Minsk on March 25, 2021. From there, he reported what was happening in the city, where and how the security forces were moving.»

Five months later, Vitali Tryhubaŭ was again detained along with Dzianis Urbanovich and «European Belarus» activist Siarhei Matskoits. This happened on August 26, 2021, in the Homieĺ region. They were transported from Vetka to Mazyr, interrogated by the Investigative Committee. They were released a few days later.

After this, Vitali decided to leave Belarus. Literally — through fields and gardens.

Uladzimir Zhyhar does not reveal the details. He only says that the path through Polesia to Ukraine was then the quickest and most realistic: Vitali reached Mazyr, where people were found who were ready to help him cross the border.

Initially, he wanted to stay in Ukraine. Uladzimir Zhyhar insisted that Vitali should still go further into Europe. They worked on documents and a visa for a long time. Finally, in February 2022, Vitali Tryhubaŭ found himself in Vilnius. But his safe life lasted only a few days.

From Irpin to Bakhmut

After the Russian invasion, Vitushka returned to Ukraine with one of the first groups of Belarusian volunteers. In conversations with Uladzimir Zhyhar, he mentioned Irpin, Bucha, injuries, and service in the Kalinoŭski Regiment.

Former volunteer Aliaksandr «Kuś» Klačko remembered Vitushka from Lysychansk in the first half of June 2022. This was a time of heavy fighting for Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk — the last major cities in the Luhansk region that remained under Ukrainian control.

Later they met in Kramatorsk. At the frontline base, Vitushka refueled cars on which volunteers went to work in the Bakhmut area.

«We didn't communicate much with him. Afterward, I didn't particularly follow his path,» says Aliaksandr Klačko. «I know that from approximately March, he, along with Dzianis «Vaŭkalak» Urbanovich, joined the Belarusian Volunteer Corps and possibly participated in its operations.»

Aliaksandr Klačko last saw Vitushka at the end of March 2026 in Kyiv — at the funeral of another Belarusian volunteer.

Direct, sometimes to the point of bluntness

In March 2025, a sharp conflict arose around the «Volat» battalion. Dzianis Urbanovich then stated that some Belarusian fighters in Kyiv were being forcibly, «at gunpoint», transferred to other units of the Foreign Legion. The reasons and circumstances of this decision were never fully explained publicly.

Aliaksandr Klačko recalls that on that day, about 40 Belarusian volunteers came to the military unit to support two fighters who were about to be transferred. One of them, according to Klačko, was Vitushka.

Aliaksandr Klačko also says that Vitali Tryhubaŭ was among a group of fighters who forced volunteer Aliaksandr Lakhvich to record a «repentant» video. However, Lakhvich himself later claimed: of the six participants in that story, only Vitushka behaved humanely, supposedly having joined them just for company.

Uladzimir Zhyhar calls Vitali open and sometimes too straightforward. He was not an easy person who would choose words carefully so as not to offend anyone. In November 2025, Vitali Tryhubaŭ spoke in Vilnius on behalf of a group of Belarusian volunteers, sharply criticizing democratic structures and accusing them of allegedly speaking on behalf of all Belarusians, although they only represented themselves. He did not hide his views and did not try to please everyone.

«He was a good person. Open, straightforward, a good friend,» says Uladzimir Zhyhar. «A patriot and a true Belarusian.»

«He Grew Up»

He did not choose the call sign «Vitushka» by chance. Even before the war, Vitali Tryhubaŭ was interested in the Belarusian national movement. Uladzimir Zhyhar last met him in 2025 at the Ostroh Forum.

«It was very nice to see him, to talk. He had changed — he had grown up,» Uladzimir recalls and bids him farewell with the words:

Rest in peace, worthy Belarusian. It is an honor for me to have known you.»

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