The Investigative Committee has published a press release on the investigation of two criminal cases on charges of treason. One of them involves a retiree from Valozhyn, who is accused of working for Ukrainian intelligence. In connection with the other case, BELPOL is mentioned, as well as a Polish agency where missing in 2025 Anatol Kotau worked.
According to the committee, one of the defendants is a 42-year-old resident of Minsk. Investigators say that in the autumn of 2023 he “entered into negotiations with a foreign destructive organisation acting in the interests of an extremist group known as BELPOL, with the aim of collecting information about Correctional Colony No. 1 in the city of Navapolatsk”.
The man received a bank card and instructions on how to check its functionality. He transferred money to it, hid it in a cache and informed “foreign handlers” of its location. The money was intended for a third party, who was to “establish the conditions of detention of convicts and set up a communication channel with them, as well as obtain personal data of staff”. These materials were later used to “create socio-political tension and aggression in society”, as well as “discredit law enforcement agencies by creating fake news about the mistreatment of convicted persons serving sentences, and to obtain personal data of employees for pressure, recruitment and harassment of their relatives”.
The committee also said that the 42-year-old defendant, together with another 36-year-old suspect, “transferred profits obtained from a private company under their control abroad to extremist formations Terra Group Event and SSL Production, whose task was to destabilise the situation in the country”. In November 2025, the KGB designated “participants of the coalition of initiatives Terra Group Event and SSL Production” as an “extremist formation”.
“In addition, one of them, acting as director and co-founder of a private Minsk-based company, made a unilateral decision to pay himself dividends without approval from other owners of the enterprise. As a result, he embezzled more than 240,000 roubles in company profits”, the committee said. It did not specify which of the two defendants faces this charge.
Charges have been brought under three articles of the Criminal Code:
- Part 1 of Article 356 (“Treason”),
- Part 2 of Article 361-2 (“Financing extremist activity committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy”),
- Part 4 of Article 210 (“Misappropriation through abuse of official powers on an especially large scale”).
Both defendants are in custody.
It should be noted that Anatol Kotau, who went missing in August last year during a trip to Turkey, worked for the Polish event agency Terra Group Event. In the database of “extremist formations” maintained by the Interior Ministry, in connection with the “formation” Terra Group Event and SSL Production, the names of Vitaly Kryvko (born 10 July 1986) and Andrei Yarashevich (born 25 November 1983) were mentioned.