“Painful and Unfair”: Maryna Zolatava reflects on Ludmila Chekina and the TUT.BY crackdown anniversary

Five years ago, author­i­ties destroyed TUT.BY, Belarus’s largest news por­tal.

On May 18, 2021, secu­ri­ty forces came with search­es to the news­room and employ­ees’ apart­ments. Fif­teen peo­ple end­ed up behind bars. Crim­i­nal cas­es were filed against them for alleged­ly evad­ing tax pay­ments. The publication’s web­site was blocked.

The portal’s gen­er­al direc­tor Lud­mi­la Chek­ina remains impris­oned to this day. She was sen­tenced to 12 years in prison.

On the fifth anniver­sary of TUT.BY’s destruc­tion, the portal’s edi­tor-in-chief Mary­na Zolata­va, released in Decem­ber 2025, pub­lished a post about her col­league. We present it in full.

Mary­na Zolata­va and Lud­mi­la Chek­ina in court. Screen­shot: RFI

“I real­ly hoped I wouldn’t have to write this text. Lud­mi­la Chek­ina, our won­der­ful Mila, has been behind bars for 5 years now. 1,826 days. It’s hard, it’s painful, it’s unfair. Dur­ing this time, Lud­mi­la lost her father and couldn’t even say good­bye to him; her son grad­u­at­ed from uni­ver­si­ty and served in the army.

Pre­cise­ly five years ago, a hor­rif­ic event occurred for the coun­try: the Tut.by por­tal was destroyed. Hor­rif­ic — because more than three mil­lion Belaru­sians (that’s how many unique users we had at the time) were imme­di­ate­ly deprived of their source of infor­ma­tion. Secu­ri­ty forces raid­ed the offices of Tut.by Media in Min­sk and region­al cen­ters, and came with search­es to the apart­ments of dozens of com­pa­ny employ­ees. On May 18, 2021, 15 peo­ple were detained. Access to the por­tal was blocked.

Eleven peo­ple spent long months in pre-tri­al deten­tion, and the wid­ow of por­tal founder Yury Zis­er — Yulia Char­ni­auskaya — was under house arrest for 8 months.

Tut.by Media gen­er­al direc­tor Lud­mi­la Chek­ina and I remained behind bars the longest. We were both sen­tenced to 12 years impris­on­ment. I’ve been free for 5 months now, while Lud­mi­la remains behind bars.

Lud­mi­la and I rarely met dur­ing those five years. Each such meet­ing was like a hol­i­day. Whether a chance encounter on the way to the exer­cise yard, a trip to review the case file, to court, or a meet­ing at the fac­to­ry in the cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty. Mila always radi­ates cheer­ful­ness and opti­mism. I don’t know what price she pays for this.

One episode involv­ing Lud­mi­la in the cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty stands out in my mem­o­ry. On Sun­days, we had film dis­cus­sions in the club. That time, we were dis­cussing the remark­able film Michelan­ge­lo – Infini­to (yes — it wasn’t only war movies that were shown there). Unfor­tu­nate­ly, our unit hadn’t seen the film because the day before we had been har­vest­ing pota­toes, but we still attend­ed the dis­cus­sion.

The cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty. The club. Strange women in kha­ki uni­forms — they’d hard­ly heard any­thing like this before. At the lectern, Lud­mi­la enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly talks about Michelan­ge­lo and Renais­sance art, quot­ing her beloved Joseph Brod­sky. Every­one lis­tens. I smile. Our Mila.

Lud­mi­la was kept in the same cell for all two years and three months of her pre-tri­al deten­tion. They say she helped write appeals for near­ly every­one there. Her com­pas­sion and sup­port were enough for all of them. She helped every­one, regard­less of their crime, social sta­tus, or badge col­or. An extreme­ly rare qual­i­ty. She also had patience.

Dur­ing her time in pre­tri­al deten­tion, she start­ed draw­ing and mem­o­riz­ing poems, of which she already knew quite a few. She read a great deal. She also exer­cised in the small jail court­yard and did yoga in her cell.

It’s not easy for her in the cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty. First, her sta­tus as a per­son involved in ter­ror­ist activ­i­ties doesn’t allow her to receive com­mis­sary mon­ey. This means she has to live on a max­i­mum of 50 rubles per month. Sec­ond, Lud­mi­la was labeled a ‘per­sis­tent vio­la­tor.’

That means she only has one phone call per month instead of three. She has health prob­lems. She often has to car­ry heavy things, and she has always had back prob­lems. In ear­ly March, Mila was sent to the pun­ish­ment cell for five days.

I know she’s hold­ing on and not com­plain­ing because she does­n’t like to com­plain. But I also know how hard it is. I very much hope this night­mare for Mila ends soon. Then she’ll final­ly be able to hug her son.”