Monday morning in Kiev, Vitali Chychov, 26, goes out for a jog.
He will never come back.
His body was found the next day in a park in the Ukrainian capital, not far from his home, hanging from a rope.
Ukrainian police have opened an investigation for "murder" because, in the eyes of investigators, the trail of "murder camouflaged as suicide" is not in doubt.
This Belarusian activist was the director of an NGO aimed at helping opponents of the Belarusian regime to go into exile in Ukraine in order to escape the repression in their country.
Ukraine: Vitaly Chychov, director of an NGO helping opponents of the Belarusian regime, was found hanged on Tuesday https://t.co/xB1tXnb0Xq pic.twitter.com/UBckOgdxAm
- TV5MONDE Info (@ TV5MONDEINFO) August 3, 2021
The activist's organization, "Belarusian House in Ukraine" (BDU), denounces an assassination orchestrated by the authorities of Belarus, a neighboring country protected by Moscow.
An operation aimed at "liquidating" a person "dangerous for the regime" of President Alexander Lukashenko.
In power since 1994, in recent months he has exercised increasing authoritarianism, with large searches and sometimes spectacular arrests, imprisoning thousands of people with ease.
Vitali was being watched, and the police knew it
"There is no doubt that this is a planned operation of the Chekists", a term designating the security forces, says the NGO on the social network Telegram.
“Vitali was being watched and the (Ukrainian) police had been notified.
We had been warned on several occasions both by local sources and by people in Belarus of (the possibility of) all kinds of provocations including kidnapping and liquidation ”.
Yury Shchuchko,
a member of Belarusian House in Kiev interviewed by Associated Press, affirms that Vitali Chychov was found with marks of wounds on his face: “Nothing was stolen (…), he only had his phone on him.
"We had been warned that it was necessary to be more vigilant, because a network of Belarusian KGB agents was operating here.
Vitali had asked me to take care of his loved ones, he had a bad feeling, ”he added.
Vitali Chychov fled to Kiev in the fall of 2020, in the face of the growing virulence of the repression of the gigantic protest movement against the re-election of Alexander Lukashenko.
Since then, the young man has been busy helping his compatriots exiled in Ukraine for the same reasons as him, says Alena Talstaïa, head of the Belarusian NGO Razam.
He was demonstrating against the regime
He also participated in the organization of protests against the regime of Mr. Lukashenko in Kiev, according to the BDU.
Vitali Chychov's case comes shortly after an incident at the Tokyo Olympics with Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, threatened with forced repatriation for criticizing her federation on social media.
Forced to withdraw from the competition, the 24-year-old athlete fled to the Polish embassy, where she obtained a humanitarian visa.
See also Belarusian sprinter threatened with repatriation: the illustration of a country "in a state of panic"
The Belarusian regime is also accused of having hijacked a commercial flight in May on the pretext of a bomb threat to arrest dissident Roman Protassevich on board.
Alexander Lukashenko then sent a fighter plane to intercept the Ryanair flight on board which the opponent was traveling.
Read also Ryanair flight baffled by Belarus: "I risk the death penalty", panicked the Belarusian activist arrested
Another resounding case, the trial which opens Wednesday of one of the three great figures of the protest last year in Belarus, Maria Kolesnikova, prosecuted for "conspiracy to seize power".
According to the latter, Belarusian security forces abducted her last September to exile her in Ukraine.
But as she resisted, she was eventually arrested, jailed and charged.