Valeryja KAŚCIUHOVA
Image Credit: Viyaleta Sauchyts / RFE/RL Belarus Service
A political scientist, editor and author, Valeryja Kaściuhova is serving a 10-year sentence in a general-security penal colony in Homel, southeastern Belarus. She was reportedly in need of medical care at the end of the year.
On 30 June 2021, State Security Committee (KGB) officers raided Valeryja Kaściuhova’s apartment and subsequently transferred her to a pre-trial detention centre in Minsk. Kaściuhova was charged alongside researcher Taćciana Kuzina with ‘incitement of measures of a restrictive nature (sanctions) and other actions aimed at causing harm to the national security of Belarus’ (Article 361.3 of the Belarusian Criminal Code), ‘conspiracy to seize power by unconstitutional means’ (Article 357.1), and ‘incitement to racial, national or religious hatred or discord’ (Article 130.4). Their trial opened in Minsk on 6 February 2023. Kaściuhova and Kuzina were both found guilty on 17 March 2023 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The Belarusian Supreme Court upheld Kaściuhova’s sentence on 25 July 2023. Her name was added to the government’s ‘list of citizens of Belarus, foreign citizens, and stateless persons involved in extremist activities’ and ‘list of organisations and individuals involved in terrorist activities’ in August 2023.
Born on 30 December 1967, Valeryja Kaściuhova is the founder and editor of independent analysis and opinion website Nashe Mneniye (Our Opinion), the author and editor of Belorusskiy ezhegodnik (Belarusian Yearbook) and the head of Bielarus v fokusie (Belarus in focus), a group of Belarusian experts providing analytical commentaries on events about Belarus. She wrote several analytical pieces for Nashe Mneniye following the fraudulent presidential election of August 2020.
Update: Valeryja Kaściuhova was released from prison on 20 March 2026 following ongoing negotiations between Belarus and the United States aimed at lifting economic sanctions. She remains in Belarus at the time of writing.