“There Is Only One Version: Vitaly Was Killed, This Was an Order from Lukashenka”

The deputy head of the Belarusian House in Ukraine told new details about the tragic death of his colleague.

On August 3, in Svyatoshinsky Park in Kyiv, Vitaly Shishov, the head of the Belarusian House in Ukraine, who supported political refugees from Belarus, was found dead. Details and the main version of the death of the head of a public organization are in the material of MBH Media.

What it looks like, or Warnings from the SBU

The death of Vitaly Shishov in Kyiv is similar to three more ominous deaths of opponents of the regime of Aliaksandr Lukashenka. The head of the Belarusian House in Ukraine was found hanged - he disappeared while jogging. In August 2020, a famous Belarusian football fan Mikita Kryutsou was found hanged in a forest on the outskirts of Minsk. In the same August 2020, in a forest in the Hrodna region, the director of the military history museum Kanstantsin Shyshmakou, who refused to sign a falsified protocol during the presidential elections, was found hanged. And in 2010, an opposition journalist, founder, and head of the opposition website Charter-97, Aleh Biabenin, was found hanged at his dacha near Minsk.

Ukrainian police are investigating two versions of Shishov's death: suicide and murder disguised as a suicide. None of his entourage believes in the first version - neither the girlfriend of the deceased nor the colleagues in the Belarusian House. Earlier, Shishov drew attention to the surveillance of himself. Christo Grozev, the head of the Bellingcat investigation department, speaks about the possible involvement of the special services in the death of the activist - however, for some reason, he means the FSB. Why should the FSB get involved in the story of the murder of a Belarusian political emigrant living in Kyiv, Grozev did not explain.

The version connected directly with Lukashenka's special services looks much more plausible. The representative of the Belarusian House in Ukraine, Yuri Shchuchko, on the air of the Current Time channel (recognized by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation as a media-foreign agent) said that the BDU received information that representatives of the Special Operations Forces of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Belarus were coming to Ukraine from Belarus, and KGB agents were working. The information, according to him, came “including from the SBU,” and it was the Security Service of Ukraine that urged Belarusians to be more careful.

Who could have done it

Kyiv is one of the main points of attraction for Belarusian political emigration. Large communities of Belarusian political refugees have developed in both Lithuania and Poland in recent months. But when rescuing in an emergency, it was Ukraine for many citizens of the Republic of Belarus that was the most convenient option: they do not need a Schengen visa to cross the Ukrainian border.

The Belarusian House in Ukraine appeared at the end of 2020. Its activists were involved in helping new refugees - adaptation, legalization, search for housing, and employment. Participants also carried out street actions under white-red-white flags - near the Belarusian embassy in Kyiv and on the Maidan.

The activity of the Belarusian House in Ukraine in Kyiv caused great concern among the Belarusian authorities, which did not hesitate to take retaliatory measures on the streets of the Ukrainian capital. At the end of 2020, the memorial to the victims of the Lukashenka regime, created by Belarusians living in Kyiv and representing a composition of photographs of the dead, flags, and icon lamps, was destroyed - it appeared right in front of the Belarusian Embassy in Ukraine. On December 30, it was partially destroyed by unknown persons. At their rallies, the Belarusian House in Ukraine participants often saw observers identified as “tsikhary” - employees of the Belarusian special services. In June, during the picket of the Belarusian House in Ukraine on the Maidan, a provocation was staged against the activists. Three tipsy men (presumable residents of Kyiv) began to insult Belarusians and started a fight. When the provocateurs left the Maidan, the activists of the Belarusian House in Ukraine followed them - it turned out that the three went to the Belarusian embassy, near which they met a man who had previously repeatedly monitored the actions of the Belarusian House in Ukraine. The man handed the package to the provocateurs. The Belarusians even managed to videotape one of the provocateurs counting the money.

But the use of street drunks in fights, quite possibly, was only the beginning of the attack on the Belarusian House in Ukraine. Back in 2012, Novaya Gazeta writes, the then head of the KGB of Belarus, Vadzim Zaitsau, discussed with other officers plans to kill Lukashenka's enemies, including those living abroad, journalist Pavel Sharamet and the former head of the Minsk SIZO-1 Aleh Alkaeu.

It is easier to deal with “enemies” on the territory of Belarus - in the 90s and early 2000s, many people who were inconvenient for Lukashenka’s regime were killed then. But Pavel Sharamet was blown up in 2016 in the center of Kyiv - and the “Belarusian trace” is now one of the main versions. Perhaps Lukashenka's special services are ready to take new steps beyond the borders of their fear-ridden republic.

»I have only one version: this is murder"

MBH Media spoke about the possible reasons for the death of the head of the Belarusian House in Ukraine with his deputy Rodion Batulin:

- What versions of Vitaly Shishov's death are you considering?

- I have one version: this is a murder, Vitaly was killed. This is an order from Lukashenka. And the perpetrator could be anyone. The agents, including even the Russian one, are enough to carry out this order, and some Ukrainians could also have been hired. It is important to understand that the Belarusian House in Ukraine, in addition to helping refugees, was also involved in many other projects, including helping volunteers [who fought on the side of Ukraine in the Donbas]. We have popularized the defense of the sovereignty of countries [in post-Soviet space]. We understood that we needed to adopt volunteer experience, we communicated with volunteers, passed on this experience to Belarusians. This could have been displeasing, including for the Russian special services.

I am a man of right-wing views. Vitaly Shishov and I did not hide our faces, and worked with the media, gave interviews on behalf of our organization. Because of this, it is often said that the Belarusian House in Ukraine is a right-wing organization. But we do not position it as the right-wing one. We have developed network connections, we transfer information from person to person, we get people out of Belarus, we help people get legalized, we put pressure on the sponsors of the Lukashenka regime - for example, the Norwegian company Yara International. We have many enemies, but the main enemy is Lukashenka, and Vitaly's death is beneficial only to his terrorist regime.

- Your colleagues from the Belarusian House in Ukraine say that the SBU warned members of the organization about the growing danger from the Belarusian special services. What do you know about this?

- People from the SBU really warned that provocations and even abductions were being prepared against the participants of the Belarusian House in Ukraine. Vitaly and I discussed this situation, including his jogging. I asked him not to run here and there [in unsafe places], as it [may] be fraught.

- As you know, Vitaly Shishov is not the first enemy of Lukashenka who was found hanged…

- Yes. When Vitaly disappeared on August 2, a group of activists and acquaintances came to look for him along the route of his run. They didn't find him at first. Among those who came to look for him was Pavel Kukhta, brother of Mikita Kryutsou, who was killed a year ago in Minsk. Mikita was also killed, hanged in a forest belt. Mikita just recently had a birthday, which we celebrated near the Belarusian embassy, reminding that no one is forgotten.