The activist fled his native Belarus amid dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s brutal crackdown following the country’s disputed August 2020 presidential election. He settled in Ukraine and founded an organization to assist other persecuted Belarusian exiles. And this week, Vital Shyshou was discovered hanged in a park in Kyiv.
The Ukrainian police have opened a murder investigation and members of Shyshou’s organization, the Belarusian House in Ukraine (BDU), say Kyiv authorities had warned them about possible assassination attempts.
BDU activist Yury Shchuchko told Current Time television that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had warned about “people from the Belarusian special operations forces and other units coming to Ukraine to physically liquidate” them. “They asked us to be cautious, because a network of Belarusian KGB agents is operating here, and anything is possible.”
BDU also released its own statement on Telegram reading: “We were warned repeatedly by local sources and our people in Belarus about possible provocations, going as far as kidnapping and assassination. Vitaly reacted to those warnings with stoicism and humor.”