"We need reinforcements, we can't hold them!" Losik recounted how August 9 felt like at Valadarka

Pre-trial detention center SIZO-1 on Valadarski street in Minsk. Illustrative photo.

On August 9, 2020, election day, I was sitting in a cell at Valadarka, with windows facing almost directly the gate. I had a TV in my cell then, and from early morning I began to suspect that something unusual was going to happen, because BT was showing a live broadcast from a polling station where Lukashenka was expected to arrive, and people at his polling station were approaching to take ballots with white bracelets on their wrists. The level of fear, apparently, was zero.

After the polling stations closed, when it was already dark, through the bars on the windows we started to see flashes from explosions in the sky, shots were heard, and we thought that people were simply being shot in Minsk. Under the cell windows in the yard, we could hear many riot police with shields standing there, and even their conversations were audible.

Closer to night, the explosions and automatic gun bursts began to intensify, and I honestly thought that war had started. Then, around midnight, we began to hear a large crowd of people approaching Valadarka, chanting "Freedom!". The sound grew louder and clearer, and the obscenities of the security forces standing below became even more crude.

Then something happened that was impossible to even imagine; for some reason, I couldn't find a single video on YouTube. Judging by the sounds, the crowd began to storm Valadarka, hitting the gate, a fight began, someone from below started shouting into the radio: "We need reinforcements, we can't hold them anymore!" And then flash-bang grenades started exploding right under the windows, the cell was filled with smoke and the smell of gunpowder.

I don't know what happened then, but to this day I have the impression that people broke through into the territory of Valadarka. Clashes began, shouts, shield blows, the chanting became quieter and more distant. As I understood it, this wave was repelled. A little later there was another wave of clashes, but not as loud.

It's impossible to convey my feelings that evening. Probably everyone who heard it in all the cells thought that any moment the doors would open and everyone would be released. In the corridor, there was an 18-year-old cadet who ran through the cells, fruitlessly begging everyone to get down from the windows and go to sleep.

No one slept that night. And the next day, I witnessed a conversation between two corridor guards.

— F***, what should I wear to go home from my shift today?

— What's wrong?

— If you go in civilian clothes, the cops will beat the shit out of you, and if in uniform, the people will.

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