Belarusian Court Recognizes Businessman With Russian Citizenship As Spy

Who he is.

A man was tried in Belarus 10 months ago under the articles on "espionage" and "undercover activity". The Nasha Niva newspaper has found out the name of the defendant, who turned out to be 59-year-old Sergei Botvich - a businessman with Russian citizenship, who has companies in Lithuania and France.

Botvich was tried by the Hrodna Regional Court. The newspaper does not mention the verdict. It is only known that the man was tried under the articles "Espionage" (Article 358 of the Criminal Code) and "Undercover Activities" (Article 358-1 of the Criminal Code).

According to the publication, Sergei Botvich owned companies, the total turnover of which was hundreds of thousands of dollars, and some of them were registered in the EU.

Information on Sergei Botvich

Sergei Botvich was born in the agro-town of Novy Dvor in Svislach district, Hrodna region. He graduated from the Minsk Institute of Foreign Languages - now the Minsk State Linguistic University. When he was in his fourth year, back in the days of the USSR, Botvich went to France for an apprenticeship.

The man has Russian, not Belarusian citizenship. He got his Russian passport in 1994.

He was engaged in business in Belarus, Russia, France and Lithuania - mainly tourism and wholesale export of coal from Eastern Europe to the Baltic States and Western Europe.

The total turnover of Botvich's companies in profitable years was several hundred thousand dollars a year.

His Activities in Belarus

In 2014, Botvich took part in a project to build a charcoal plant near Svislach. The state newspaper reported that the plant "attracted investments worth $967 thousand". The plant was to be built by BSPenerji, a firm with Lithuanian roots, according to "NN". One of the key investors was a firm from Svislach district, Erabl Group, which also exported coal from Belarus to France and Lithuania.

Another of his major projects is the purchase of the Bahudenka estate near Svislach for $30 thousand. It is a wooden manor, which was built at the turn of the twentieth and twentieth centuries and once belonged to Tadeush Butovt-Andreykovich. The building has the status of historical and cultural value.

Botvich was going to create there a complex of two hotels and a stable, and to restore the estate. He promised to bring there "world stars and representatives of the world media" and mentioned, in particular, the name of football player Zlatan Ibrahimovich.

However, none of this was implemented: Botvich took only a couple of small groups of foreign tourists there, and the promised restoration works were never started. The hotel didn't open either.

At some point the business started to fall apart. It's not known what exactly happened, but the coal plant was never built, and Botvich was criminally prosecuted in June 2018. According to the "Cyberpartisan" bases, the fabula of the criminal case against the man sounds like this:

"Botvich Sergei <...> deliberately, out of selfish intentions, not intending to fulfil the obligations undertaken, through deceit and breach of trust, on the basis of participation in the investment project for the construction of a coal production plant, took possession of the funds of Erabl Group LLC in the amount of 734 thousand euros."

The proceedings were terminated. The reason was the impossibility to carry out investigative actions, without which a decision on the termination of the preliminary investigation cannot be made (paragraph 5 part 1 of article 246 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). Most likely, the man went abroad, the newspaper believes.

Following Events

"Nasha Niva" found Botvich's companies. The Lithuanian ones are almost all bankrupt, the French and Russian ones do not work. The Bahudenka estate was seized from him, and it is still for sale without any hope.

The man last updated his Facebook page in July 2021 - it was an advert for the sale of his car. A year before that, he wrote that "Belarusians have a thousand-year history" in response to some publication in the style of the "Russian world".

What happened afterwards is a mystery. It seems the man was detained. Botvich was charged under two articles - "Espionage" and "Undercover Activities". The trial took place in October 2022.

Both the sentence to the man and the background of the case are unknown, but he is definitely now in a colony, as there are no other forms of punishment under these articles, the publication believes.