President of the Republic of Lithuania
Your Excellency,
We would like to express our sincere gratitude for Your public response to our appeal concerning transparency in the use of international assistance allocated to support Belarus and Belarusian democratic initiatives.
We highly appreciate Your attention to this issue and believe it is important that questions of transparency, accountability, and public oversight have received recognition at the level of the Head of the Lithuanian State. This matters not only for financial integrity, but also for relations between the peoples of Belarus and Lithuania, whose histories remain deeply interconnected. We believe that cooperation between a future democratic Belarus and democratic Lithuania should be built on trust, openness, and mutual respect, free from any perception that the tragedy of Belarus after 2020 became, for some individuals or structures, a source of financial benefit, or monopolization of the representation of Belarusian society abroad.
Many Belarusians developed the perception that certain individuals and groups who were not even present in Belarus during the historic peaceful uprising of 2020, and who bore no personal risks, obtained privileged access to political influence and international financial resources through connections with particular individuals in Lithuania.
As a result, many Belarusians came to believe that, for some of these structures, the continued existence of authoritarian repression became politically and financially beneficial: the worse the situation inside Belarus, the greater the international attention, funding, and influence accumulated abroad. While thousands of people inside Belarus faced imprisonment, torture, destruction of their property and forced exile, others transformed the tragedy of the Belarusian people into political influence and financial gain.
For example, Franak Viačorka, adviser to the so called „Office of Tsikhanouskaya,” who explained his absence from Belarus during the 2020 campaign by saying he was „afraid of shooting,” reportedly received annually around EUR 1 million to his „Infopoint” company, where he was the sole beneficiary, allegedly using these resources to create financial and informational dependency over media outlets, NGOs, bloggers, and civil society initiatives, as well as for personal gain.
Thus, at the very moment when thousands of political prisoners who had fought for Belarus’s future remained behind bars, and lonely mothers who fled persecution with their minor children were literally struggling to survive, he publicly displayed luxury watches worth approximately EUR 7,000 — an amount exceeding the average annual salary in Belarus. In the eyes of many Belarusians, this and similar examples of using foreign assistance deepened divisions within the democratic movement, destroyed trust between Belarusians, and discredited democratic institutions themselves.
This is only one example of a much broader problem: the emergence of a closed system of nontransparent distribution of international assistance. Serious public concerns have also emerged regarding leaks of personal data of Belarusian citizens, which subsequently led to hundreds of arrests, persecution, and criminal proceedings inside Belarus. Among the structures publicly associated with such concerns are „Belarusian Hajun,” „Black Book of Belarus,” and the „Peramoga” plan. At the same time, „Belarus Passport Center” continues to operate on the territory of Lithuania, issuing the so called „New Belarus Passport” and collecting sensitive personal data from individuals, including biometric information.
(Detailed factual materials and publicly available financial information are attached separately for Your consideration).
We believe that misappropriation or nontransparent distribution of funds on such a scale would hardly be possible without the existence of political protection mechanisms. In this regard, significant speculation has emerged within the Belarusian democratic community regarding the connection between the role of former Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis in supervising or politically supporting the above mentioned structures and initiatives and the subsequent purchase by his family of a luxury villa in Greece. The explanation that such assets were acquired exclusively due to the professional success of a spouse raises serious doubts, as history contains numerous examples where educational and charitable initiatives were used as mechanisms for accumulation of private wealth by politically connected families.
Belarusians are well aware that the daughters in law of Alexander Lukashenko, Lilia and Anna Lukashenko, emerged as „highly successful business figures” exercising influence over sectors such as arts, mass media, entertainment, and music. The Nazarbayev family, where the spouse Sara Nazarbayeva and daughter Anara Kulibayeva established elite international schools across Almaty and Astana; In Indonesia „Madame Tien” established the system of educational foundations, kindergartens, and schools, that became associated with opaque financial flows and political patronage; Asma al-Assad, who was widely known of using substantial international assistance allocated for educational initiatives in Syria to strengthen the financial influence of the ruling family. Comparable approaches were also associated with Simone Gbagbo of Ivory Coast, and Grace Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Sandra Torres from Guatemala, Rosario Murillo from Nicaragua, and many others, whose educational and charitable projects were perceived as instruments of family enrichment and political influence.
We would like to emphasize that our appeal is not directed against any individual personally. The issue concerns a broader system of nontransparent distribution of international assistance, which contributed to distrust within the Belarusian democratic movement and coincided with the strengthening of authoritarian repression and the growth in the number of political prisoners.
We highly appreciate Your decision to instruct the Office of the General Prosecutor to investigate the activities of the „Center of Law and Democracy.” We do not seek to make accusations or prejudge anyone’s responsibility. Our only wish is that both Belarusians and Lithuanians know the truth, and that questions related to the use of international assistance, protection of personal data, and possible conflicts of interest receive an objective and transparent assessment.
In this context, we respectfully propose the establishment of an independent international review mechanism involving Lithuanian institutions, relevant European Union bodies, independent auditors, legal experts, civil society and media freedom organizations, as well as representatives of Belarusian democratic society without political discrimination. We believe such a mechanism would strengthen public trust and demonstrate Lithuania’s commitment to openness, fairness, democratic pluralism, and responsible stewardship of international assistance.
Respectfully yours,
Dr. Valery Tsepkalo
Chairman of the Board, Belarus Democratic Forum, former Ambassador to the USA, Founder and CEO Belarus HiTech Park, Presidential Candidate 2020
Dmitry Bolkunets
Secretary General, Belarus Democratic Forum
P.S. On May 19, 2026, voting concluded for the so-called „Coordination Council,” another example that became associated with misuse of foreign assistance, whose previous chairperson misappropriated approximately EUR 150,000 allegedly used to purchase an apartment in Minsk.
According to publicly available figures, only around 2,000 people out of approximately 7 million eligible Belarusian voters participated in the elections, despite extensive promotion, paid advertising campaigns, the involvement of well known Russian bloggers, and repeated appeals by Ms. Tsikhanouskaya, her office, and affiliated structures.
These results reflect the actual level of public support for such fictitious structures and serve as an objective assessment of pseudo democratic organizations claiming to represent Belarusian society. The outcome also raises serious questions regarding the effectiveness, accountability, and use of the hundreds of millions of euros and dollars allocated by European and American taxpayers to support Belarusian democratic initiatives, which we respectfully call upon You, Mr. President, to help clarify before the Belarusian, Lithuanian, European, and American public.
