What is the court's logic in the Hayun case? A man detained in this case described what he saw

Photo: LookByMedia

«I've never seen so much military equipment before»

Kiryl is 31 years old, he is from Maladziečna. For the last few years, the man worked at the local water utility, and in parallel took on part-time jobs in various fields — construction, repairs, automobiles, and even a bit of industrial alpinism.

In 2020, Kiryl attracted the attention of security forces due to a white-red-white flag on his car: it passed without punishment, but he had to participate in a couple of preventive conversations. Nevertheless, before the start of the war, he did not feel much pressure.

He recalls how and why he sent those very photos to the «Belaruski Hayun» project bot, which later led to criminal charges:

«I remember driving on the highway from Minsk to Maladziečna and seeing a lot of military equipment, I had never seen so much before. All sorts of things happened, especially since there's a military unit in Maladziečna, but for equipment to be driving for several kilometers — that's something new.

This really bothered me, so I took a photo and sent it to the Hayun bot. About a day later, when I was driving in the other direction, I noticed a lot of equipment again, also filmed it and sent it».

Kiryl explains that the security forces consider all messages sent within 24 hours as one episode in a criminal case, regardless of how many there were. The man communicated with the Hayun bot for two days, meaning there are two episodes in his case.

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Photo: Ministry of Defense of Belarus

He had 37 messages — photos and answers to clarifying questions. At the end, the person who responded to Kiryl in the bot reminded him to clean his phone of correspondence traces.

Kiryl says he didn't feel much risk in it:

«It didn't take me even five minutes of my life — I saw it, sent it, and deleted the traces from my phone. There was no feeling that I had done anything wrong. And over time, I lost the feeling that I could influence anything at all».

He no longer wrote to the chatbot and completely forgot that he had sent those photos, especially since he wasn't subscribed to Hayun.

«They didn't rough me up much after the arrest, only hit me twice»

When the Hayun bot was hacked in early 2025, Kiryl read about it. But the man felt that if all data was deleted from his phone, there was no danger for him.

True, when he learned about the hack, he decided to delete one of his Telegram accounts just in case, but it didn't help him at all, as the security forces already had all the information.

On May 6, 2025, they came for him:

«When they detained me, for the first ten minutes I simply didn't understand what was happening. They grabbed me, threw me to the ground, picked me up, dragged me into a van, then took me up to the apartment where my wife was waiting for me. When my wife asked the GUBOP officers what for, one of them asked — did you write to Hayun? And even then I couldn't remember.

They didn't rough me up much after the arrest, only hit me twice. Knowing how other people were detained, I can say that I was handled very gently».

No traces of the bot were found on Kiryl's phone. Some of his comments from 2020 were sent for examination, but experts found nothing criminal in them. The man thought there was nothing against him, but he found out: the security forces had access to the correspondence from the other side, and all correspondence from that side had been saved.

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The man from Maladziečna recalls how he was almost released.

«They call me for interrogation at the Temporary Detention Isolator, and there are two offices close by. They take me into the office on the right, and in the other office, some person is already being interrogated with an investigator. And then my investigator tells me — they say, you're being released on bail, 10 thousand euros. I even thought, how could my relatives have collected such money so quickly.

He pulls out papers, I start signing them, overjoyed. My lawyer comes in, confirms everything, says my wife is already waiting for me. And then investigator Tazhun, who is handling this case, comes in and points a finger: they say, we're releasing the one in the neighboring office, but this one — and points at me — we're not releasing», — the interviewee recounts.

His investigator himself was surprised: for some reason, they ordered the release of a person who had sent more messages to the bot, but he, Kiryl, was kept behind bars.

Several months before the trial, the man saw the Zhodzina prison and Minsk pre-trial detention center No. 1 from the inside — he ended up in Zhodzina because his case was redirected from Minsk to the Maladziečna Investigative Committee. He recounts that he saw many other defendants in the Hayun case there.

In the materials of his criminal case, the man saw an interesting screenshot, where he learned a bit about the scale of the Hayun case:

«It was written there that the total number of messages amounted to tens of thousands. The authorities divided those who wrote by the number of messages: conditionally, those who wrote up to 500, up to 1000 messages, and more than 1000. Through this, they determined whom to detain».

«Everyone just disregarded it. This is what prompted me to leave»

In the summer of 2025, Kiryl was in the same cell with political prisoner Maksim Shukanau — a Mazyr blogger who was also involved in the Hayun case. In 2025, Shukanau was sentenced to four years in a penal colony, and his girlfriend Palina Zyl was also arrested with him.

Shukanau left a good impression:

«Maksim has had epilepsy since childhood. A decent, pleasant guy, you could talk to him, he spoke English fluently.

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Maksim Shukanau. Screenshot: UnionBell / Youtube

Before the trial, he didn't know what was happening to Palina. He had already been behind bars for four months under Article 342 for participating in protests, but said he might also be prosecuted under Article 361-4. Those prosecuted under Article 342 usually got through quickly — from detention to trial took up to three months, but here Maksim had been sitting for four months. So he suspected something was wrong».

Shukanau told cellmates that he and Palina were allegedly detained near one of Minsk's shopping centers — they say, they approached them and took them away in some jeep. They showed him and his girlfriend photos from the 2020 protests. And a couple of days later, he also spoke about torture:

«He says they came for him, took him somewhere, started beating him, interrogating him, asking for some names. He told them he knew nothing — saying, what do you want from me, I have epilepsy, I am a sick person».

Kiryl recalls being a witness when Shukanau suffered a severe epileptic seizure in his cell. In freedom, Maksim had seizures no more often than once a year, but in four months behind bars, there were two such seizures.

In October 2025, Kiryl received his sentence — 4 years of penal settlement. He was tried under Article 361-4.

The man compares his sentence with those of other Hayun defendants. He had 37 messages sent to the bot, and two episodes — yet many other Hayun defendants received home detention, meaning a lesser punishment, and for a greater number of episodes:

«The minimum punishment under the second part of Article 361-4 is also home detention. That is, I only had one episode more than those who were tried under the first part, because the second part is about repeated actions.

But there were trials where people had 7-8 episodes, or where there was another article, for example, insulting Lukashenka. And most of these people were sent to home detention. I, however, was given as many as four years of penal settlement».

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Photo: General Prosecutor's Office

The outcome of the trial was also important for Kiryl because his wife has a complex diagnosis — multiple sclerosis.

«It's such an unpleasant disease that can intensify simply due to stress. Even before the trial, I wrote a letter to the judge about this, we provided all documents, my wife appealed for a softer sentence and for me to be left at home, we appealed the decision. But nothing had an effect»," the man recounts.

The matter was also that Kiryl's wife needed daily assistance due to her illness. To maintain her condition, the woman needs expensive IV drips every six months — one drip costs about a thousand dollars. If Kiryl had been sent to a penal settlement, it's unlikely he could have financially supported his wife in this, as it's impossible to earn much while serving that sentence.

However, they found no understanding:

«The Supreme Court judge said — they say, show documents that your wife needs help. We provided documents about her diagnosis, about the fact that she is a third-group invalid. As I understood it, they wanted it to be explicitly written on paper what specific help was needed, that I had to hold her hand».

In January 2026, it became known that the appeal against the sentence was not granted. Then Kiryl and his wife decided to write a petition for pardon to Lukashenka. The man says that according to the rules, such petitions must be submitted from places of detention through the administration of the institution, meaning they did not follow this rule. But they decided to try.

Kiryl's wife also wrote a letter from herself in addition to the petition — saying, it's now the Year of the Belarusian Woman! Moreover, in exceptional cases, such petitions can indeed be submitted not from places of detention — Raman Pratasevich managed it. But the couple received a reply that precisely because of where they submitted the petition, it would not be granted.

Kiryl spoke with an acquaintance who has been in emigration for several years, and came to the conclusion — he needed to leave. He managed to leave with the help of the «Bysol» evacuation service.

He clarifies that even if he had been given home detention, he would have stayed in the country and been home with his sick wife:

«Everyone just disregarded it — the first instance court, the Supreme Court, the DIA [Department of Penal Enforcement] of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and Lukashenka's Administration. This is what prompted me to leave».

Kiryl recalls that when he understood the circumstances of the Hayun hack while behind bars, he was shocked:

«But I'm the kind of person who didn't get too angry; it is what it is. There's no point in discussing what could have been; everyone just needs to draw big conclusions from all of this.

I very much hope that democratic forces, which previously collected a lot of data from people, like the «Peramoha Plan» itself, will strongly care about the safety of the people who wrote to them. People there are at great risk, and God forbid that another data leak should happen. And everyone should draw their own conclusions, especially if they are in Belarus».

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