They found hanged Belarusian opponent missing in Ukraine

The leader of the humanitarian organization House of Belarus in Ukraine, Vitali Shishov, missing since yesterday, was found hanged in a park in Kiev, police in the Ukrainian capital reported today.

“The police have opened criminal proceedings in accordance with article 115 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code (premeditated murder) and will check all possible versions, including the murder presented as suicide”said a statement posted on the website of the National Police of Ukraine.

“Belarusian citizen Vitali Shichov, who disappeared yesterday in Kiev, was found hanged today in one of Kiev’s parks, near where he was staying.”Ukrainian police said in a statement on Tuesday.

According to one of the versions under investigation, it could be a “death camouflaged as suicide”, the police added.

Shishov, 26, ran the Belarusian House in Ukraine, an NGO that helps his compatriots flee the crackdown by Alexander Lukashenko’s regime.

His NGO denounced Tuesday a “planned operation” by the regime of dictator Alexander Lukashenko.

“There is no doubt that this is an operation planned by the Chekists (term for the Belarusian security forces, editor’s note) to liquidate a Belarusian who represented a real danger for the regime”, the organization indicated in its Telegram account.

The activist went for a run in Kiev on Monday morning, but did not return and stopped answering her cell phone.

Shishov’s friends said he was followed by “strangers” as he jogged.

“Vitali was being watched and the (Ukrainian) police had been informed. We had been warned on several occasions both by local sources and by people in Belarus of (the possibility of) all kinds of provocations up to and including kidnapping and liquidation. “the NGO continued.

“We tracked down the whole forest where he was running, but we found no trace of Vitali”, they pointed out in an entry on the Telegram channel of BDU, an organization that provides assistance to Belarusians who have fled their country.

Police said Shishov, 26, had his cell phone and other personal belongings with him. The activist had commented a few days ago to his colleagues that he felt he was being watched and that strangers had tried to strike up a conversation with him.

The dictator of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko has cracked down on all forms of dissent since mass protests erupted after last year’s elections, deemed illegitimate by several Western countries.

According to “Belarusian House”, Chichov was forced to leave for Ukraine in the fall of 2020 after participating in anti-government protests in Gomel in southern Belarus in August and “actively opposing” the authorities.

Many Belarusians have been forced to flee the country, often to neighboring Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania.

Shishov’s death came when Belarusian athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya said over the weekend that she was forced to withdraw from the Tokyo Olympics due to threats of forced repatriation for criticizing her athletics federation..

The sprinter, who obtained a humanitarian visa from Poland on Monday, said she feared imprisonment if she returned to her country.

Her husband, Arseny Zdanevich, told the AFP On Monday, he fled Belarus to Ukraine and hoped to meet his wife “in the near future”.

Lukashenko sparked international outrage in May by sending a fighter jet to intercept a Ryanair plane flying from Greece to Lithuania to arrest a dissident on board.

(With information from EFE and AFP)

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