Roman Protassewitsch
Date of Birth: 05.05.1995
Roman Dmitrievich Protassevich - Belarusian journalist, blogger, co-founder and former editor-in-chief of the Telegram channel NEXTA, editor-in-chief of the Telegram channel 'Belarus Brain'.
Place of birth. Education. Born on May 5, 1995, in Minsk, into a family of a military personnel. Father - Dmitry Protassevich, former lieutenant colonel of the reserve (stripped of all military ranks by self-proclaimed President Alexander Lukashenko), was a senior lecturer at the Chair of Ideology at the Military Academy of the Republic of Belarus, retired in 2019 before the protests in Belarus started. Mother - Natalya Protassevich, worked as a librarian at the same military academy.
Roman Protassevich enrolled in the Faculty of Journalism at Belarusian University but was soon expelled. In a later interview, he emphasized that they trained 'state propagandists' there, which he argued about with the lecturers.
All related materials
- The opposition blogger Roman Protassevich was pardoned in Belarus - BELTA News
- The Russian girlfriend of blogger Protassevich, Sofia Sapega, was sentenced to 6 years in Belarus. News
- Charges of air piracy were brought in the USA because Ryanair was forcibly landed in Minsk News
Since the early 2010s, Protassevich participated in opposition protests. He attended protests against the Belarusian authorities and the regime of Alexander Lukashenko. He was repeatedly detained by security forces as a participant in actions or as an administrator of opposition pages on social networks.
He worked as a journalist in several Belarusian media: European Radio for Belarus, Radio Svoboda, Onliner.
In 2015, Roman Protassevich and Stepan Putyla founded the YouTube blog NEXTA, which later became a Telegram channel with a million subscribers.
In August 2020, after Belarusian authorities attempted to block access to the Internet during the 2020 presidential elections, NEXTA became one of the main information sources about protests against rigged elections and began to coordinate them.
In 2019, Roman Protassevich left Belarus after he began to notice surveillance of him. After the start of active protests in Belarus, Protassevich said he also brought his parents to Poland.
On January 22, 2020, Roman Protassevich applied for political asylum in Poland, received the status of a political refugee, and was editor-in-chief of NEXTA Live.
At the end of September 2020, Roman Protassevich announced that he was leaving NEXTA. He justified his decision by stating that he did not agree with Stepan Putyla on how to further develop the channel. Protassevich became the editor-in-chief of another opposition Telegram channel 'Belarus Brain'.
Together with the co-founder of NEXTA, Stepan Putyla, they were placed on an international wanted list by Lukashenko's regime. They were included in the 'terrorist list' and accused of organizing mass riots and inciting social hostility.
Stay in Ukraine. Roman Protassevich visited Ukraine during the Euromaidan as an observer but returned home after a week after the security service employees 'Berkut' smashed his head, although he was not actively involved in the clashes.
For a year, Roman Protassevich was a freelance journalist and photographer in the Donbass, in the ATO zone. He was wounded but did not take part in hostilities.
Hijacking of the Ryanair flight by Lukashenko's regime. On May 23, 2021, Ryanair's aircraft from Athens to Vilnius, with Roman Protassevich on board, was diverted to Minsk while approaching Vilnius Airport. The crew received a message from Belarusian dispatchers about a 'bomb on board' (Lukashenko's propagandists claim that the crew allegedly requested to land themselves). The armed forces sent a MiG-29 fighter to the skies to escort the plane. According to one of the opposition leaders Pavel Latushko, the MiG-29 also threatened over the dispatchers that it would shoot down the plane if it did not land urgently. When the plane landed, passengers were evacuated, and bomb experts searched the aircraft. The bomb was not found.
There was also a repeated check of passengers, during which Protassevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega were arrested by security forces (before departure, the opposition member noticed that he was being monitored). The plane spent several more hours at the airport, then the crew was allowed to fly to Vilnius. According to Latushko, besides the opposition member and his girlfriend, 'four persons did not arrive' in Vilnius, preliminarily, citizens of the Russian Federation. Ryanair's CEO Michael O'Leary speculated that KGB agents had left the plane.
The EU leaders agreed on new sanctions against Belarus, urging airlines in the bloc to avoid the country's 'airspace', prohibited Belarus Airlines from flying to the EU, and demanded the immediate release of detainees. Ukraine halted air traffic with Belarus.
On June 25, 2021, Roman Protassevich was placed under house arrest.
On May 22, 2023, Roman Protassevich announced to journalists that he was pardoned.
May 23, 2023.