Blogger and dissident Siarhei Tsikhanouski , 48, was detained in Belarus in May 2020, after he had announced to challenge the country's ruler, Alexander Lukashenko, in the upcoming presidential elections. In December 2021, Tsikhanouski was convicted to 18 years in prison, in part for organizing "mass unrest." After his arrest his wife, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, took his place and challenged Lukashenko as presidential candidate. Despite allegations of large-scale vote-rigging, Lukashenko was declared the winner of the election in August 2020.
This triggered unprecedented mass protests across the country. They were violently suppressed, and thousands of government critics were arrested or fled into exile. Tsikhanouskaya also fled her homeland and became the leading representative of the Belarusian democratic movement.
In June 2025, Siarhei Tsikhanouski was released after nearly five years in prison and was forcibly taken out of the country. Some 14 months after his release, the blogger has re-activated his YouTube channel, where he not only denounces Alexander Lukashenko's regime, but also Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya's office, Belarusian media in exile, political analysts and others. Thousands of people follow his streams.
In one of them, Tsikhanouski claims that while Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya obviously enjoyed "a certain legitimacy from the European Union," the people who were living "quietly and silently" in Belarus today had not granted her any. He said that many of those who had voted for her as joint candidate of Belarus' opposition were regretting this today. Tsikhanouski has suggested that a supervisory board should be established under the label "United Office of Demoratic Forces." It would be made up of "former presidential candidates, protest leaders and iconic figures of the revolution," including himself and his wife.
"There would not be a full legitimacy but one which was at least granted by Belarusians," Tsikhanouski said, adding that such a supervisory board could oversee the distribution of grant funds. Speaking about his wife, he said: "Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was a so-called technical candidate, who received the votes of all those who were against Lukashenko. The percentage of votes she received in the 2020 election was negligible because no one knew who she was.
She was allowed to run because she did not pose a threat for the regime, and because she had neither supporters nor political experience." Asked by DW what his goals were, Siarhei Tsikhanouski refused to comment and referred to his livestreams instead. The former political prisoner is residing in the US and is, by his own account, currently unemployed. At the beginning of summer he said he was living in Los Angeles, learning English, preparing for university studies and writing a book.
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