“Because of one man who will do anything to stay in power they have simply thrown us out of the country”

In his interview to “Salidarnast”, Maksim Senik, an activist of the Belarusian Independent Union (BNP) at the Grodna Azot fertilizer plant tell us what a man who dares express his own point of view and speak against unjust actions of the authorities has to go through in contemporary Belarus.

At a press-conference in Vilnius several days after his deportation. Photo: LookByMedia

Maksim was detained in Grodna for his participation in the 2020 protest actions and a social media repost and charged under the Criminal Code articles related to insulting Lukashenka and aiding and abetting extremist activities. In 2023, he was sentenced to 4 years in a general-regime penal colony. In 2025, he was deported from Belarus together with a large fgroup of political prisoners.

— It’s over a month now since you\’ve regained your freedom. How do you feel outside prison walls and in a foreign country?

— I haven’t quite come back to my senses yet, it all was too sudden. But I need to so that I could start living in a normal society somehow.

The feeling a psychological pressure and, probably, depression is still there so far. But I’m far from being the only one like this.

Today’s authorities put totally innocent people behind bars whose only crime is speaking their mind and opposing the falsified 2020 elections. Besides, they put pressure on political prisoners’ relatives who eventually would draw hard stares from, say, neighbours or colleagues because people are so frightened these days, fearing they themselves might end under the steam-roller of repressions.

And all this affects the society as a whole; it’s like throwing a stone in a pool with ripples going out in all directions.

That said, the situation in 2020 was different; people were incensed by what was going on in the country, they wanted change. Worker solidarity was not just empty sounds.

The rally our union organized after the so-called elections had many people attending – probably more than a half of the plant’s entire workforce. There were KGB officers among them too who watched and tried not to miss anything.

The main topic for discussion was the unfair elections. Workers were saying there was proof that the results had been falsified.

However, the rally did not lead to an industrial action; many people simply got afraid. It’s scary to lose your job and your livelihood with it, particularly for those who had families they needed to take care of. I can’t blame any of them for that. Everybody chooses their own path.

— And what was the one you chose?

— I stayed at the plant and continued working, although I realized it would not be not for long. Maybe, I still hoped some change would come after all. Time showed I was wrong.

In 2021, following an order from the Grodna Azot general manager, all production floors and all stories of the administration building had TV screens installed that were on 24/7, broadcasting propaganda shows, telling us that the plant was doing great, that the sanctions did not affect us one bit and it was business as usual for the plant, and other stuff in the same vein. Although, it was not so, of course.

I felt resentment and indignation because of all that. There came a moment when I realized I did not want to have anything more to do with the plant. I submitted my resignation note but they did not endorse it and threatened to fire me with cause rather than sign my voluntary resignation.

I took a holiday, intending to leave the plant after that but my plans were not destined to succeed. During that time, KGB officers came to my place and took me with them.

To me, it was not something entirely unexpected: for quite some time I had a feeling that I was walking the knife’s edge for my civic position and my independent union activities. It was later that I learnt they had put me on the list of “unreliable ones” and I already had been “shadowed”.

And the first time I hit their radar was when I had an appointment with the mayor of Grodna as a representative of an independent union to discuss the issue or redundancies at the plant. That meeting, as I came to know later, found its way into my file the KGB had opened.

I spent eight months in a pre-trial detention facility, waiting for the trial, and I had a very hard time. Yet, I couldn’t even imagine what the future had in store for me.

I ended up in the Babruisk penal colony. I snore a lot and my cell-mates, naturally, found that very irritating. I understood them perfectly well but I simply could not control myself when I was asleep. It’s just impossible.

So, they roughed me up, and they would snatch and hide my blanket so that I could not go to sleep. And when I was transferred to another detachment, they would pour water on me during the night. Or even during the daytime, should I suddenly doze off, for instance, sitting on a chair and reading.

— And there was nobody who would give you at least some kind of support?

— There, it’s each man for himself; everybody survived any way they could. The detainment conditions were fit for cattle; for example, the central heating in the cells would not be turned on before mid-November.

I had a taste of the punitive isolation ward (the notorious SHIZO), too, where I spent four months. I can’t even start describing the cell; it was worse than a pigsty. I had a hole in the concrete floor for the WC, and it was thickly covered with feces because nobody ever cleaned it. So, at some point your eyes start burning because of all that stench. The walls around the hole are completely destroyed, the cell floor is stark concrete.

During the winter, the punitive ward is very cold. Obviously, they did not take us for humans: you get chills, you get colds, you’ll get over it somehow – nobody could care less.

Besides, I could not correspond with my relatives by letters, I could not call them, neither could I receive money from them to buy some necessities. The colony administration’s argument for all those bans was that they were not my next of kin.

And the slightest violation of the internal rules could entail an extra term in prison. For instance, you have tidied up you cell but the schedule has got changed in the meanwhile and they tell you that you have failed to keep you cell clean. Moreover, this could go on for as long as they liked: in Belarusian prisons, the administration does what it pleases, as no laws operate inside their walls.

I made several suicide attempts because I felt I could not bear it any longer, neither psychologically, nor physically. I told the chief warden that if my term was extended, they would have my corpse. So, they let me be. Yet, wardens would set other prisoners against us, the political ones.

— Did you expect to be released together with other political prisoners?

— I did not. That day, they woke me up at 2 am and told me to put on my robe, pack my things quickly, and come out. I asked them where we were going. They replied that they knew nothing.

I spent half an hour at the colony’s check-point, tried to find out what was going on but nobody would tell me anything. Then they brought two other political prisoners who were equally confused. The three of us were sitting together in what they called “cages”. Then they brought more people…

Later on, we were searched and they told us to change into civilian clothes. And I only had summer things in my pack. So, I asked them to let me keep my prison padded jacket, at least; I said I’d freeze otherwise. They took their time but, ultimately, they consented.They put a hat on my head in such a way that my eyes were covered and I could not see where they were taking me.

Also, they handcuffed me. And because they could not lock the handcuffs over my mittens, they threw the mittens away, and my hands were terribly cold.

All those who were with me in the bus were also handcuffed. And I had this thought that they would now take us to a forest somewhere and simply kill us there.

It was a very long trip, and over a bad road, too. As we were told later, this was done intentionally so that we did not forget it for a long while.

In the outskirts of Homyel, the took the handcuffs off but bound our hands with scotch tape and put us in other buses. They gave us our passports back and the money we had earned. Well, money is too big a word for it, just some laughable coins in an envelope. Obviously, they wanted to have one last laugh at our expense.

A couple of hours later we reached the Ukrainian border, crossed it, and went on to Chernigov, to a hospital there. While on the road, we saw houses destroyed by shells and bombs, it was hard to look at them.

Three days later I found myself in Lithuania. Now, I’m trying to settle down somehow, the events of the past few years and all those things I had to go through are still with me and would not let go yet.

And, of course, I felt so bitter as they have just thrown us out of the country – all because of one man who would do anything to stay in power.

Victoria Leontieva

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