"I had the opportunity to take a different road." Viktar Babaryka — about the day of his arrest 6 years ago

Photo: Lookby.Media

"Why should I save myself and leave everyone else?"

The morning of June 18, 2020, began for Viktar Babaryka with a warning from his driver that all roads to the village were blocked, and, most likely, there would be arrests. The presidential candidate was going to drive with his son Eduard to the CEC to submit the signatures collected for himself.

"I had the opportunity to take a different road, as there were quite a few exits from the village where I lived. But I still decided to take the usual road. The only thing I did was get behind the wheel of my car myself, so as not to put the driver in a difficult position, and drove off. I was already expected and detained at the village exit," the politician recalls.

His son was detained along with Mr. Viktar. The security forces did not show their IDs or explain exactly which agency they belonged to. They got behind the wheel of Babaryka's car, he was seated in the back, and they drove to the Department of Financial Investigations.

It was already clear a week before those events that there would be arrests when almost the entire management of Belgazprombank was arrested, says the former political prisoner.

"I had a whole week, if I wanted to, to leave. Secondly, I thought that the regime was not so weak, because Alyaksandr Lukashenka then stated that he would never imprison Babaryka before the elections. At that time, it seemed that all this would not last long. And thirdly, according to my principles, it would have been a clear betrayal of the people who were with me. Why should I save myself and leave everyone else in the Republic of Belarus? For me, this was incomprehensible," says Babaryka.

Understanding — this is for a long time

On the day of his detention, the politician was first held for a long time at the DFR, then transferred to the "Amerikanka" — the KGB pre-trial detention center, where he was taken for interrogation in the evening. The interrogation was interrupted around eight or nine in the evening, and Mr. Viktar was sent back to his cell.

"Already in the cell, I heard some honks from the street, other noise. And then those who were with me in the cell said: these are probably protests because of you. Honestly, I didn't really believe it, because it was unexpected for me. I didn't think it would be like that, but later it turned out to be true," he says.

The politician notes that it became clear that everything was serious and long-term after August 9, when the brutal suppression of protests began. Although information arrived with a significant delay, lawyers were not allowed in, but from the fragments that were told, it was clear that the authorities had resorted to unprecedented repression.

"From the lawyers' accounts, it was clear that this would be a very brutal suppression. And Russia also outlined its position then – it was said that their divisions were already ready to join the suppression. That is, they thereby untied the regime's hands. Then it became clear that there was a high chance that all this would be for a long time," the former political prisoner recalls.

About the meeting with Lukashenka in the KGB pre-trial detention center

On October 10, 2020, Lukashenka held a meeting in the KGB pre-trial detention center with political prisoners, among whom was Viktar Babaryka. The "Belsat" interlocutor says he still doesn't understand why that meeting took place. The only explanation he sees is perhaps that "Lukashenka probably wanted to believe that some millions of terrible forces, and not the Belarusian people, stood behind us, to see some terrible villains who wanted to do something."

Perhaps Lukashenka also wanted to show these "criminals" to his youngest son Mikalai, whom he brought to the meeting, says Babaryka. But he failed to do so, because instead of criminals, he saw ordinary people.

It's also possible that at that meeting, Lukashenka wanted to psychologically break his opponents. The politician recalls two moments that were personally painful for him:

"Firstly, he then clearly defined what my sentence would be — he explicitly said: Babaryka, you will serve 14 years. Knowing how our judicial system works, I understood that I would indeed serve 14 years. And secondly, he delivered a rather harsh blow when he said: well, you went yourself, but why did you implicate the most sacred thing — your son? But, I think, he was also deeply affected when Eduard interrupted him and said: that was not my father's choice, it was my personal choice. These moments were significant for me at that meeting. As for everything else, I still don't understand why it was needed."

According to Babaryka's recollections, Lukashenka at that meeting looked as always — like a person for whom power is the main value in life, for which he will stop at nothing. But also, before the political prisoners then was a person who, probably for the first time, was on the verge of losing his power, he is convinced.

"And he wanted to see those who wanted and could take this power from him. But he saw no one except the Belarusian people. But he was not confused then. He looked like a man completely obsessed with power," the politician says.

"Psychological pill"

Then came the trial — on July 6, 2021, Judge Ihar Liubavitski sentenced Viktar Babaryka to exactly the term Lukashenka had announced in the KGB pre-trial detention center — 14 years of imprisonment in a maximum-security colony. The politician was accused of "legalization ('money laundering') of criminally obtained funds" (Art. 235 of the Criminal Code of Belarus) and "receiving bribes" (Art. 430).

Babaryka spent more than four years in Novapolatsk correctional colony No. 1. He was released on December 13, 2025, and taken with a group of other political prisoners to Ukraine, from where he went to Poland and then to Germany, where he is now starting everything from scratch again. The politician says it's like a third life, a new state. Before 2020, he lived in his home country with certain opportunities and plans. And then there were six years in conditions unlike anything experienced before or since.

Now is the third stage, in which everything starts anew and life must be built from scratch.

"Perhaps coming to terms with it at this stage means realizing that you are starting everything anew again. Maybe it's impossible to fully recover — one can only try to preserve oneself," notes the politician.

In this new life, a "psychological pill," as Babaryka himself calls it, saves him from despair and difficult experiences: when things are bad, when it seems everything is complicated and nothing works out, the former political prisoner recalls where he was on December 12, 2025 — in a penal colony. Little can compare to that place in terms of difficulty, he notes:

"This 'pill' always helps, because you understand that you are free, and here you can do much more, and you have more options, no matter how difficult it may be. Although, of course, it's psychologically hard to start from scratch at an older age, it's definitely better than being in prison."

"It cannot be that 6 years in prison did not affect one's health."

As for physical health, Babaryka says he never took care of it as much as he did in prison and after his release. Behind bars, there were two main goals: to preserve mental and physical health. And once free, in Germany, local doctors convinced the politician, who doesn't particularly like hospitals and medical procedures, that "it cannot be that six years in a cell did not affect one's health in any way."

"Therefore, a full 'technical inspection' is necessary," Babaryka jokes. "And that's the direction I'm moving in."

In his new, free life, the former political prisoner wants to do what he did before — "build, create something new and good," even if the resources and opportunities are now different from those in his homeland. Babaryka intends to exert maximum effort for the Belarusian people.

"The concept of 'Belarus' is very conditional for me; I don't really understand what Belarus is. But I understand what the Belarusian people are. I understand these people, they are dear to me, because we lived together, I like their values, I share many of their convictions. Therefore, I will put maximum effort into ensuring they have more opportunities for self-realization, so they understand that respect and freedom are the most valuable," the politician reflects.

"I love utopias"

With this goal in mind, Babaryka conceived the Belarus Network project. By definition, it will be a system for finding, uniting, and mobilizing the resources of Belarusians inside and outside the country to solve common problems and preserve the subjectivity of the Belarusian nation.

"However utopian it may sound, and I love utopias, this will be an analogue of a network state. In any case, we will try. Today we don't have the opportunity to live together. But we have new technologies that allow us to live, work, help, interact. We don't have a territory, but there is a virtual environment in which we will try to do something," explains the former political prisoner.

This will not be some virtual Belarus, but Belarus built on a system of communications using modern technologies, the politician notes. And the virtual environment here will not be an end in itself, but a tool for communication.

Babaryka considers it important to create such an environment, because, in his opinion, without communication, without unity, without understanding each other, we risk finding ourselves in a situation where everyone will be in their own bubble. The ultimate goal of the project is "to give Belarusians the opportunity to freely choose in which country they want to live."

"There's no need to tell Belarusians what kind of Belarus they want to see. Let's create conditions for them to say it themselves," summarizes the former political prisoner.

At the end of June, offline meetings are planned in Warsaw, where the Belarus Network concept will be presented in more detail.

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