Котов проходит границу в Стамбуле
The Belarusian Investigative Center has published a report titled “The Dangerous Connections of Politician Kotau: How a Belarusian Opposition Figure Disappeared and Who Was Involved,” revealing details surrounding the disappearance of Belarusian Sports Solidarity Foundation employee Anatol Kotau.
The joint investigation by the Belarusian Investigative Center, Deutsche Welle and OCCRP took nearly a year to complete and was published on June 18, Kotau’s birthday. He turns 46 today. His relatives still do not know where he is or whether he is alive.
Journalists identified four individuals linked to the disappearance of Kotau, who flew from Warsaw to Trabzon, Turkey, on Aug. 21, 2025, allegedly for an important business meeting.
There, he boarded the 30-meter yacht Shells together with three other passengers — Russian-speaking Azerbaijani woman Qahira Eynalova, a Jordanian citizen according to her passport, who claims she had a romantic relationship with Kotau, and two Russians described as the organizers of the trip, Yuriy Golovanov and Petr Grib. The authors found that the Russian citizens had various connections to veterans of the Belarusian KGB and the Operational and Analytical Center.
Belarusian karate kyokushin coach and judge Yury Puzikau, who was also on the yacht and disembarked before its departure, worked for the sports association Vozrozhdenie, an organization that was headed at different times by three former intelligence officers. Among them was drone manufacturer BTS Global owner Yury Serykh, whom Kotau knew before the trip.
The yacht’s official route was to Sochi. However, the captain received unofficial instructions to sail to Sukhumi, the capital of the self-proclaimed Abkhazia. On the morning of Aug. 22, a Russian coast guard military vessel approached the yacht. The Russians accused Kotau of allegedly attacking them. FSB border guards boarded the yacht, took Kotau away and ordered the captain to remove him from the passenger list. He has not been seen since.
The investigation concluded that the operation had been planned in advance. The yacht involved in the abduction was linked to a Turkish arms manufacturer. It was later sold and renamed YS Legacy. The initials match the name of Serykh, and links to him can also be traced through corporate documents.
Poland, where Kotau lived, has not launched an investigation. Russia and Belarus deny that he was detained.
The full investigation can be read at this link.
As previously reported, Anatol Kotau disappeared in August 2025. It is known that he took leave from his job at the event agency Terra Group and on Aug. 21 traveled to Istanbul and disappeared. According to the Turkish prosecutor’s office, Kotau’s passport was recorded at 18:35:54 when he departed Turkey through the port of Trabzon on Aug. 21.
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Anatol Kotau is a representative of the Belarusian Sports Solidarity Foundation. He graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). He worked at the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, the Administration of the President of Belarus, the Belarusian Embassy in Poland, the National Olympic Committee, the directorate of the 2019 European Games and the Presidential Property Management Directorate.
In August 2020, he resigned in protest from his position as deputy head of the department responsible for financing state bodies within the main financial administration of the Presidential Property Management Directorate. He had lived in forced exile in recent years. Kotau is a member of the Ethics Commission of the World DanceSport Federation and the working group of the Athletes for Freedom Foundation.
In 2024, Kotau was sentenced in absentia in Belarus to 12 years in prison on charges of conspiracy to seize power, leading an extremist formation and facilitating extremist activities.