Security Forces Hint at Reason for Detentions at Minsk Office of ZROBIM Architects

A Telegram channel close to security forces linked the detentions at the Minsk office of ZROBIM architects to a post by the company’s founder Andrei Makouski on Threads. In the post, he spoke about a letter from state authorities requiring the company to hire an ideologist on staff.

“An in-house ideologist was getting in his way. (…) And the result did not take long to arrive. (…) Had the manager not mocked things on Threads and staged a circus, perhaps less radical intervention would have sufficed,” the propaganda resource wrote.

Earlier on April 9, security forces came to the Minsk office of ZROBIM architects. At around 11 a.m., all employees present at their workplaces — about 50 people — were detained. It was reported that Makouski himself was among those detained. At the same time, the company’s work server became unavailable.

ZROBIM architects is a Belarusian architectural studio founded in 2011 by Andrei Makouski and Aliaksei Karabliou. The company operates both in Belarus and abroad and regularly receives international awards. Last year, a school project in the Novaia Baravaia district of Minsk won the IIDA Global Excellence Award 2025 in the Education category.