August 27 was supposed to be a normal Thursday at work for Alexander Vasilevich, a successful Belarusian media professional. Violent protests and street fighting with the infamous OMON riot police had broken out two weeks earlier in Minsk following the massively falsified August 9 presidential elections that saw incumbent Alexander Lukashenko returned to office in a landslide victory according to the Central Election Commission. But none of the people believe the official results.

Vasilevich doesn't regard himself as political but he was, like hundreds of thousands of other Belarusians, a supporter of jailed ex-banker and presidential candidate Viktor Babariko, who was going to run against Lukashenko until being locked up shortly before the vote.

Besides, Vasilevich had work to do. Over the last 25 years he has set up half a dozen flourishing media and advertising businesses with clients that stretch from Moscow, through the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and on to the US. Belarus has been dubbed the “last dictatorship in Europe” and Lukashenko runs the economy on a neo-Soviet model, but a vibrant entrepreneurial segment of society has also made the small republic a powerhouse in the media and IT space that largely operates independently from the state and has a strong international reputation.

Alexander Vasilevich has worked in the media and advertising business in Belarus for over 25 years and founded half a dozen companies

Then suddenly, just before midday, half a dozen plainclothes officers from Belarus’ security service entered the offices that are shared by four of Vasilevich’s firms. The employees were corralled and the police began to turn the office over, confiscating computers, phones, records, anything that might contain details of Vasilevich’s business, before putting him cuffs and leading him away.

The police have charged him with financial crimes, effectively using his success in business as an excuse to lock him up. But Vasilevich has already been listed as one of the 145 political prisoners currently languishing in Belarus’ jails, singled out for his support for Babariko, who he knew personally from before the elections thanks to a shared interest in art.

In what was clearly a big operation, at exactly the same time police entered Vasilevich’s other office as well as the homes of nearly two dozen co-workers,  accountants and other senior executives in his organisation, which were also searched and cleared of records, money and hardware.

“All of Sasha’s businesses and the homes of key employees were searched simultaneously. The police detained some 20-30 people who were “invited” to meet with the Department of Financial investigations,” says Vasilevich’s wife Nadia, who spoke with bne IntelliNews by phone from Tallinn, where she now lives in self-imposed exile. “They confiscated all the electronics and cash that they found, including the children’s iPads.”

Across town Nadia was just getting out of her car at midday and was in the parking lot near the own offices of her digital design business Red Graphics, which she owns independently from her husband, although the two sets of firms occasionally work together. She was also detained and taken in for questioning for several hours, but eventually she was released.

“I was told I didn’t need  a lawyer and they kept me there for talking. I was only allowed to call a lawyer after seven hours when they were ready to start formal charges," says Nadia. "I was worried, as my daughter was at school and I was supposed to go and pick her up. It was the first day of school and it was a short day, but I finally managed to call to school and my mother went in the end, two hours late.”

Despite the increasingly brutality of the police during the demonstrations, one of the oddities of a truly authoritarian regime is its need to keep a sheen of legality for its actions; across most of the former Soviet Union (FSU) there is a ban on arresting pregnant women, which remains taboo. Nadia was eventually released several hours later the same day.

In all, some 30 people were caught up in the razzia that day. Even the home of Nadia's mother was raided and searched by security services.

That was three months ago and Vasilevich remains in pre-trial detention, while Nadia has fled the country and is in Tallinn, unsure of when she will see her husband again. Vasilevich faces up to 15 more months in pre-trial detention and a sentence of up to seven years if convicted.

The details of the charges and the legal process that followed remain unclear, as detainees in Belarus are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that bans them from talking about their cases. Nadia warned that if she talked about her case in detail she could face criminal prosecution if she returns home.

This was the second time that Vasilevich had been arrested. He was also sentenced to 14 days in jail at the end of July after he went to the KGB headquarters on Prospekt Nezalezhnosti in central Minsk to hand in a petition calling for the release of Babariko in the days before the presidential election.

Vasilevich and Babariko were acquainted. Vasilevich also owns a not-for-profit art gallery in central Minsk, only a short walk from Babariko’s headquarters, that he set up to promote local artists and as a place for them to meet.

Babariko is also a patron of the arts. He ran the Belarusian branch of the Russian-owned Gazprombank for over 20 years and his offices housed a celebrated private collection by local artists. The two men were planning to co-operate on projects to promote Belarusian art and culture.

“Art brought them together,” says Nadia. “They had common plans for Belarusian culture. They wanted to develop a building in Minsk to grow the art and cultural life of the city.”

So it was natural when Babariko declared he would run for president that the Vasilevichs decided to pitch in and help as volunteers to collect the over 100,000 signatures he needed to be eligible as a candidate.

“We all went out to collect signatures, me and all my friends were in these groups. It was very refreshing. A break with the past,” says Nadia.

Babariko proved to be so popular his supporters eventually collected a record 400,000 names and he looked sure to win the elections until he was arrested and also charged with financial crimes.

A few days after the elections in August Vasilevich was part of a group of 60 supporters that went to the KGB headquarters to hand in the petition asking for Babariko’s release. Vasilevich was one of half a dozen that were invited into the building and shown to an office where they are were all promptly arrested on the administrative charge of attending an unauthorised rally, which carries a sentence of 14-15 days in jail. Vasilevich was given the lighter sentence of 14 days, as he has a six-year-old daughter.

At his trial Vasilevich’s lawyers bought CCTV footage from his office showing he had been at work the entire time of the rally to prove his innocence. The judge admitted it was evidence but simply ignored it and refused to admit it as evidence.

“Vasilevich started his career as a journalist working for the independent media so he was already on file,” says Nadia.

Vasilevich joined the advertising business in 2000. He operates under several brands including Vondel, Hepta and Mediapub that perform different functions across advertising and organising events. The different brands allow Vasilevich to work simultaneously with clients that are in direct competition with each other without causing a conflict of interests. And the business has been very successful.

“2019 was a good year,” says Alena Shaidulina, a close family friend of the couple who also works with Vasilevich to organise events. "He has been working in the media sphere for more than 20 years. He has brought money to the Belarusian budget and expanded his business with a holding company in the Netherlands and an office in Estonia.”

The political oppression was always there in the background, but Nadia says that until the protests broke out it was possible to ignore the state, and many young professionals instead concentrated on building up their own lives and careers.

“Minsk is like two cities. People [have] created their own jobs by opening cafes, bars or galleries and live a parallel life in the second Minsk."

Nadia says that like so many ordinary Belarusians who expressed their rejection of the Lukashenko regime by participating in the weekly mass rallies or hung red and white laundry to dry in their windows, she and her husband have been sucked into the maelstrom that is Lukashenko’s crackdown.

On October 10 Lukashenko visited Babariko and eleven other prisoners at the KGB pre-trial detention centre. Liliya Vlasova, a lawyer and member of the opposition's Coordinating Council, was at the meeting, as was Vitali Shkliarov, a Belarusian-American strategist who worked on US Senator Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. Vasilevich was also included in the group.

The meeting was shown on state TV that evening but without any audio. No one is clear what was discussed at the meeting. The president's press office said participants had agreed to keep the four-and-a-half-hour conversation "secret".

“The meeting came the same day as [opposition leader Svetlana] Tikhanovskaya was allowed to talk to her husband for the first time in months and he asked her to be tougher. [Lukashenko] was sending a message that he is in control,” says Max Bogretsov, a former senior IT executive and now one of only two members of the Coordinating Council left at liberty in Minsk. “Lukashenko is drunk on power. He enjoys it. He likes having the prisoner there that he can offer [the first] shower that they have had in weeks, release them or send them back to solitary confinement. There was no discussion. It was a monologue. A few people at the meeting were released afterwards but… no one wants to support this state-approved opposition.”  

It is not clear why Vasilevich was included in the meeting. He is not a member of the Coordinating Council nor is he part of Babariko’s inner circle or a key manager for the Babariko campaign. Bogretsov speculates that Vasilevich was added to the group as way of incriminating him ahead of his eventual trial.

Vasilevich was one of 11 opposition figures that met with Alexander Lukashenko in the KGB jail on on October 10.

The outlook for Vasilevich is now very uncertain. His friends and colleagues have launched a campaign to raise awareness of his plight and are lobbying for international partners to put pressure on Lukashenko for his release.

The charges against him of illegal financial transactions are easy to manufacture, especially as Vasilevich had a lot of business with international clients that involved international transfers and commission payments that can simply be construed as bribes and kick-backs.

“If the case goes to trial then there is only a 0.3% chance that he will acquitted. That is the ratio of convictions to acquittals in the Belarusian legal system,” says Nadia. “The reason they are keeping him in jail is to blackmail him… in the hope of getting a confession from him. There is a legal default in Belarus today. The system has collapsed. The judges are not working. They don't need any evidence to convict you. The statements of a policeman are sufficient. There is no justice.”

During August the tension was rising slowly but there was a sense of suspended reality amongst many of the young professionals that make up Belarus’ emerging middle class.

Shaidulina helped Nadia care for her six-year-old daughter, while Nadia tried to manage the implosion of the businesses after all their accounts were frozen and at the same time mount a legal defence for her husband.

“I stopped going out as the situation on the street became more and more dangerous,” says Shaidulina. “But both my pensioner mother and brother have been participating in the weekend mass demonstrations. I worry about them, as there is a constant danger of being detained and beaten. More than 30,000 people have been in prison.”

“We never discussed the situation at home because we don't know if the apartment is bugged. All our correspondence is opened,” Shaidulina added in a phone call with bne IntelliNews from Riga, where she is now in self-imposed exile.

Shaidulina was also worried about being arrested, as detainees are forced to sign a letter promising they will not leave the country and lists of these names are sent to the border – another form of repression to try to keep people away from the weekly mass rallies. Again the quirk of the authorities' desire to keep a veneer of legitimacy means that anyone’s name that is not on one of these lists can cross the border.

“I had no official travel ban and I stayed in Minsk for the first three months because I had to close the gallery, reorganise the businesses and deal with administrative things to fight the criminal charges against my husband,” says Nadia, who also made up care packages of warm clothes, food and books, as her husband is an avid reader. “It was complicated, as all our accounts had been arrested too and we had no access to our money. How could we pay salaries? People quit.”

As things got worse Shaidulina made the decision to take up Latvia’s offer to take in skilled Belarusians and applied for an academic visa, as she is studying for a PhD. The whole process took about a month and a half and is made more complicated by the need to get special permission to travel due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

After three months of fighting it became increasingly clear the authorities were not going to let Vasilevich out of jail. It was the looming birth of their second daughter that finally pushed Nadia over the top. She decided to go too.

“I was only a few weeks away from giving birth and I didn't want to do it in Minsk. The plan had always been to go to another country for the birth. I have been to Germany when I needed treatment in the past and the Baltics are close,” Nadia said.

Alexander Vasilevich with his six-year-old daughter, who he hasn't seen for more than three months now.

Shaidulina’s Latvian visa came through. The two women packed a suitcase with essentials. Nadia, now heavily pregnant and only a few weeks away from giving birth, bundled her daughter into Shaidulina’s car and the three of them fled the country. Shaidulina stopped in the Latvian capital Riga. Nadia went on to Tallinn where her sister lives and where Vasilevich has an office.

“I rented an aptment, as we had to remain in quarantine on arrival, but we are settled now. I have been to the hospital and they are prepared to take me for the birth and we just found a place for my daughter in the local international school. She needs friends and there are a few girls there that speak English,” says Nadia. “Sasha is still in prison and the situation is not predictable. I can’t understand how it happened. You have to stay calm so that you won’t go insane. If I let go I’ll be in a psychiatric clinic.”

The opposition and the president are now in a tense standoff. Lukashenko came close to being ousted in August until Russian President Vladimir Putin stepped in and said he was willing to send a special military unit to quell the protests “if necessary” on August 27. But Lukashenko, despite slowly ramping up the violence again, has failed to retake control of the streets or break the spirit of the people. Demonstrations continue every week and the already weak economy is under mounting pressure as the money runs out. The Kremlin is only lending Lukashenko just enough to prevent an economic collapse, but, as bne IntelliNews reported, is becoming tired of him. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was in Minsk at the end of November and made it clear that the Kremlin wants him to push through a constitutional reform that could end the crisis and will almost certainly see Lukashenko’s powers reduced or even force him to leave office.

In the meantime, the nominal winner of the August 9 elections, opposition leader Tikhanovskaya, continues to tour Europe, tirelessly lobbying for support in the people’s fight to oust Lukashenko. She also has a husband in jail. She also has a young child. And she also had to flee the country.

“My husband Siarhei Tsikhanouski has been imprisoned for half a year already. We communicate only through letters and his lawyer. He was able to call me once. Our five-year-old daughter asks if her father is alive. And our family is just a case among 145 others in Belarus,” Tikhanovskaya said in a tweet on November 30, using the Belarusian transliteration of her family name. “I know that some political prisoners won't see the birth of their first child. Some will lose their businesses. Some will damage health irreparably suffering from COVID without any medical help. None of them did anything illegal.”

Nadia successful gave birth to their healthy second daughter on December 2 in a hospital in Tallinn, where she is now forced to wait to see what the future will bring.