Valery Sakhashchyk’s Youngest Son Reported Missing. Russian Tank Division Is Searching for Him

Reform.news Editorial Team · 21 October 2026, 19:16

https://reform.news/en/valery-sakhashchyk-s-youngest-son-reported-missing-russian-tank-division-is-searching-for-him/

The youngest son of Valery Sakhashchyk, former representative of Belarus’s United Transitional Cabinet for Defence and National Security, has been declared missing in Russia. According to Nasha Niva, the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of 23-year-old Viktar Sakhashchyk may indicate that he fought on Russia’s side against Ukraine.

The Kantemirovskaya Tank Division of the Russian army reported the disappearance of the Brest-born man. Its contact number was provided for anyone with information about the young man’s whereabouts.

The publication notes that Viktar was declared missing at the initiative of the Russian side, rather than Belarusian law enforcement agencies.

“Under the current circumstances, this combination of factors strongly suggests that he may be a Belarusian mercenary who died in the war in Ukraine, but whose body could not be retrieved,” the authors speculate.

“Viktar lived with me for probably the last eight years, but a year and a half ago his mother, whom I am divorced from, came to see him. He was already living separately at that point. She spent a week with Viktar and persuaded him to return to Belarus. I could not influence this; he is an adult. We have not been in contact since then.

I cannot say exactly where he has been recently. All of this is very painful and difficult for me. It is hard for me to believe that he could have served in the Russian army. When he was here, he shared the same values in life as I did and was ready to go and fight for Ukraine,” Valery Sakhashchyk told the publication.

Viktar was born on February 26, 2003. He studied in Brest and, according to information on his VKontakte page, attended an architectural and construction college in Warsaw from 2018 to 2022. His Telegram account was subscribed to channels advertising jobs in Moscow and St Petersburg.

Valery Sakhashchyk previously said that his youngest son had served in the Polish army and trained as a rescue diver.

Valery Sakhashchyk served as the United Transitional Cabinet’s representative for defence and national security from 2022 to 2024. He joined Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s team after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which he publicly condemned. Two years later, he withdrew from politics.