Two more exiled Belarusians report property seizures back home

Two high-pro­file Belaru­sians, blog­ger Vadz­im Yer­mashuk (known as Vadi­mati) and jour­nal­ist Maria Bulavin­skaya, have faced prop­er­ty seizures as part of ongo­ing repres­sion tar­get­ing dis­si­dents.

Blogger Vadimati faces apartment seizure in Hrodna

Vadi­mati. Foto: Hrodna.life

Vadz­im Yer­mashuk, a for­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­er and pop­u­lar vlog­ger, revealed via Insta­gram sto­ries that his apart­ment in Hrod­na was seized by the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee of the Hrod­na Region. The seizure occurred on Jan­u­ary 14, 2025, based on a deci­sion by an inves­ti­ga­tor. The offi­cial notice pro­vid­ed no expla­na­tion for the action.

«I don’t even know why this hap­pened. I nev­er called for sanctions—just shared the harsh details of of what I endured,» Yer­mashuk com­ment­ed.

Yer­mashuk was arrest­ed in August 2021 while film­ing in Shchuchyn. Fol­low­ing 40 days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion, he faced two crim­i­nal charges: insult­ing Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashen­ka and des­e­crat­ing state sym­bols. He denied all charges and refused to tes­ti­fy in court.

On Decem­ber 21, 2021, the Shchuchyn Dis­trict Court sen­tenced him to three years in prison.

After serv­ing his full sen­tence, Yer­mashuk was released on June 26, 2024. He lat­er revealed a diag­no­sis of malig­nant melanoma, requir­ing surgery. In Decem­ber 2024, his Insta­gram page was labeled «extrem­ist mate­r­i­al,» prompt­ing his depar­ture from Belarus.

The BYSOL foun­da­tion is now rais­ing funds for Yer­mashuk’s med­ical and hous­ing needs.

Journalist Maria Bulavinskaya’s country house seized

Maria Bulavin­skaya

Maria Bulavin­skaya, a jour­nal­ist and film­mak­er who left Belarus in 2020, learned that her rur­al home near Homel had been seized by author­i­ties. The Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee issued the order, but the rea­sons remain undis­closed.

Bulavinskaya’s home had pre­vi­ous­ly been raid­ed by secu­ri­ty forces in spring 2022. On her birth­day in July 2022, she was stripped of her rights to man­age the prop­er­ty. Now, it has been ful­ly seized.

«I couldn’t imag­ine a rea­son this might hap­pen,» Bulavin­skaya stat­ed. The home, cho­sen for its his­toric char­ac­ter, was intend­ed for restora­tion as part of a per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al project. Since her depar­ture, the house has been neglect­ed.

Bulavin­skaya also dis­closed that her pho­to has been dis­played on a «want­ed» board in Homel since mid-2024. She has no infor­ma­tion about poten­tial charges or inves­ti­ga­tions.

The pres­sure on her began in August 2020, just before the pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, forc­ing her to flee to Ukraine and lat­er to a Euro­pean coun­try.

In 2024, Bulavin­skaya com­plet­ed a doc­u­men­tary, For­est, focus­ing on 1930s mass repres­sions in the Homel Region. Despite her chal­lenges, she plans to con­tin­ue cre­at­ing his­tor­i­cal media projects about Belarus.

Broader context of repression

The prop­er­ty seizures against Yer­mashuk and Bulavin­skaya high­light ongo­ing repres­sion in Belarus tar­get­ing voic­es crit­i­cal of the regime. Both indi­vid­u­als now face uncer­tain futures in exile, rely­ing on inter­na­tion­al sup­port for sur­vival and pro­fes­sion­al endeav­ors.