State propaganda claims BIC website and chatbot hacked, threatens journalists and sources with criminal cases

The activ­i­ties of the Belaru­sian Inves­tiga­tive Cen­ter were the sub­ject of anoth­er episode of state pro­pa­gan­dist Raman Prata­se­vich’s pro­gram Unveiled. In it, the host smeared the fam­i­ly of inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Stanis­lau Ivashke­vich, threat­ened him and 16 oth­er Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists work­ing in forced exile with tri­als in absen­tia, and threat­ened crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of every­one who inter­act­ed with the BIC chat­bot.

Screen­shot from pro­pa­gan­da show Unveiled

Pratasevich against Ivashkevich

The April 2 broad­cast on the Belaru­sian state chan­nel CTV focused heav­i­ly on BIC head Stanis­lau Ivashke­vich. Host Raman Prata­se­vich por­trayed the jour­nal­ist as some­one whose work has led to “entire sec­tors being added to sanc­tions lists” and claimed that his actions direct­ly affect the finances of every cit­i­zen.

Prata­se­vich also brought up Stanislau’s fam­i­ly. He not­ed that his moth­er, Ale­na Rad­ke­vich, works for the Belaru­sian ser­vice of Radio Free Europe/Radio Lib­er­ty, and that his father, jour­nal­ist and civic activist Vik­tar Ivashke­vich — one of the founders of the Belaru­sian Pop­u­lar Front — had, in his words, already in the 1990s “made a gold mine” out of advo­cat­ing sanc­tions against his own coun­try. From this, Prata­se­vich sug­gest­ed that the son’s tra­jec­to­ry was pre­de­ter­mined: start­ing at the inde­pen­dent TV chan­nel Bel­sat and lat­er cre­at­ing an inves­tiga­tive cen­ter alleged­ly aimed at uncov­er­ing mate­r­i­al for eco­nom­ic sanc­tions to “stran­gle indus­try, under­mine the econ­o­my, and incite a hunger-dri­ven revolt.”

How­ev­er, Prata­se­vich says noth­ing con­crete about how the BIC and its head, Stanis­lau Ivashke­vich, facil­i­tat­ed sanc­tions against Belarus.

There is no direct con­fir­ma­tion of this, and the pro­pa­gan­dist tried to com­pen­sate for the lack of objec­tive infor­ma­tion in anoth­er way: after numer­ous insult­ing state­ments, he revealed the phone num­ber and res­i­den­tial address of the jour­nal­ist in War­saw, which con­sti­tutes ille­gal dis­clo­sure of pri­vate infor­ma­tion, and also used video record­ings made in a pri­vate set­ting.

The state pro­pa­gan­dist also men­tioned the names of jour­nal­ists he calls BIC employ­ees, “edi­tors and cre­ators of numer­ous pieces.” These are Han­na Sha­be­ta (Halio­ta), Siarhei Chaly, Ale­na Char­ni­auska­ja, Mikalai David­chyk, Ali­na Janchur, Ali­ak­sei Hulit­s­ki, Lola Bury­je­va, Svi­at­lana Yatsko­va, Yana Mit­skievich, Ihar Kulei, Use­val­ad Shlykаu, and Krystsi­na Char­ni­auskaya. Prata­se­vich list­ed each journalist’s date of birth and the date of their depar­ture abroad.

Who else was named besides BIC?

He also list­ed employ­ees of anoth­er Belaru­sian inves­tiga­tive media project, Buro Media: Ali­ak­san­dr Yara­she­vich, Vol­ha Rat­mi­tra­va (Alkhimien­ka), Kseniya Viaznіk­out­sa­va, and Ali­ak­sei Karpe­ka.

Accord­ing to the pro­pa­gan­dist, crim­i­nal cas­es have been opened against these 16 indi­vid­u­als, includ­ing Stanis­lau Ivashke­vich, under Arti­cles 361 (calls for sanc­tions) and 361–1 (estab­lish­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion). They are said to be fac­ing immi­nent tri­als in absen­tia. As “accom­plices,” Prata­se­vich named jour­nal­ists of Russ­ian ori­gin Alek­san­dr Vostrov, Eka­te­ri­na Mitrokhi­na, and Mari­na Dul­ne­va, and Ukrain­ian cit­i­zen Maksym Savchuk.

As a reminder, Buro Media was des­ig­nat­ed an extrem­ist for­ma­tion on April 1, 2025, by deci­sion of the Belaru­sian KGB. The Belaru­sian Inves­tiga­tive Cen­ter was rec­og­nized as an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion” ear­li­er, on Sep­tem­ber 23, 2023, by deci­sion of the Supreme Court of Belarus.

BIC denies security breach

As for Raman Pratasevich’s claims that data from the BIC chat­bot became acces­si­ble to secu­ri­ty forces and that those who inter­act­ed with the bot face crim­i­nal charges for facil­i­tat­ing extrem­ism, harm­ing Belarus’s nation­al inter­ests, and trea­son against the state, the edi­to­r­i­al team denied these claims on March 30.

“No leaks or oth­er secu­ri­ty inci­dents with our bot occurred. To reduce risk, we rec­om­mend delet­ing the dia­logue with our bot, espe­cial­ly if you are in Belarus or plan­ning a trip there,” wrote the Belaru­sian Inves­tiga­tive Center’s Telegram chan­nel.