Security forces raid regional media offices and accuse them of collaborating with Germany

On May 28, the state-owned TV chan­nel ANT aired a seg­ment on the pro­gram “To Be Updat­ed,” show­ing yet anoth­er wave of per­se­cu­tion against the few remain­ing pri­vate media out­lets still oper­at­ing in Belaru­sian regions.

Secu­ri­ty forces raid jour­nal­ists in Hly­boka­je. Screen­shot from video dat­ed May 28, 2025

The video shows armed offi­cers in olive-col­ored uni­forms and full gear storm­ing the offices of the news­pa­per Vech­erny Bobruisk. The host, Ihar Tur, draws view­ers’ atten­tion to a book titled Facts about Ger­many lying on a shelf in the news­room.

He then men­tions agree­ments the out­let alleged­ly had with the Ger­man Embassy in Belarus to pub­lish cer­tain mate­ri­als. Accord­ing to the pro­pa­gan­dist, Vech­erny Bobruisk sup­pos­ed­ly received $30,429 from 2020 onward for this coop­er­a­tion.

A search was also car­ried out at the pri­vate res­i­dence of Vech­erny Bobruisk’s edi­tor-in-chief, Valiantsin Sysoi. Author­i­ties report­ed­ly found a pneu­mat­ic rifle, a pis­tol, a dum­my grenade, and “var­i­ous Ger­mans’ busi­ness cards.” His inter­ro­ga­tion was record­ed and aired on the state TV show. The inves­ti­ga­tors focused on the same issue — alleged col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Ger­man Embassy. The video shows that the inter­ro­ga­tion took place on April 3, 2025.

The report then shifts to the Babruisk-based online out­let babruisk.info. Its edi­tor-in-chief, Ana­tol Sanat­sen­ka, was also found to have agree­ments with the Ger­man Embassy for a report­ed total of about $18,500 since 2020. The report also fea­tured Anatol’s nephew, Vital Sanat­sen­ka, who offi­cial­ly owns the out­let as an indi­vid­ual entre­pre­neur.

The video of Ana­tol Sanatsenka’s inter­ro­ga­tion is dat­ed March 28, 2025. It is known that on March 31, he was sen­tenced to 15 days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion on charges of stor­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing “extrem­ist con­tent.”

Also tar­get­ed was the for­mer edi­tor-in-chief of Vol­na­je Hly­boka­je, Uladz­imir Skra­batun. His inter­ro­ga­tion, record­ed on April 3, was also shown. The report claims that the newspaper’s pub­lish­er — the legal enti­ty Daro­ha na Vil­na — received $17,000 from coop­er­a­tion with the Ger­man Embassy since 2020. These funds were alleged­ly embez­zled by the newspaper’s accoun­tant.

Vol­na­je Hly­boka­je was found­ed in 1994 as an inde­pen­dent region­al week­ly. From the start, it was run by jour­nal­ist and local his­to­ri­an Uladz­imir Skra­batun. At the end of 2020, due to finan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties and pres­sure, the out­let ceased its print edi­tion. In Octo­ber 2021, the Vit­seb­sk region­al prosecutor’s office ini­ti­at­ed a restric­tion on access to its web­site, vglybokaye.by.

The fourth out­let men­tioned by pro­pa­gan­dist Tur was the Haradok-based news­pa­per UzHo­rak. Its accoun­tant was forced to speak about agree­ments with the Ger­man Embassy.

UzHo­rak ceased its print pub­li­ca­tion in 2022.

The piece repeat­ed­ly empha­sizes that the Ger­man Embassy signed agree­ments with out­lets des­ig­nat­ed as “extrem­ist” in Belarus. At the time of the alleged deals, how­ev­er, Vech­erny Bobruisk had nev­er been declared extrem­ist — the news­pa­per con­tin­ues to be pub­lished in print, and its web­site is active.

The same goes for babruisk.info — it is not list­ed in the nation­al reg­istry of extrem­ist con­tent.

As for Vol­na­je Hly­boka­je, only its social media pages were labeled extrem­ist, not the news­pa­per itself, which pub­lished con­tent under agree­ments with the embassy.

In 2020, UzHo­rak was also not con­sid­ered extrem­ist. Its web­site and social media pages were des­ig­nat­ed as such only recent­ly — in Feb­ru­ary 2025.

It is cur­rent­ly unknown whether any crim­i­nal cas­es have been ini­ti­at­ed fol­low­ing these search­es and inter­ro­ga­tions.