From 1994 to 1997, Dmitry Zavadsky worked as a personal operator of Mr Lukashenka. Later, he started working for the Russian television.
He vanished on the morning of 7 July 2,000 on the way to the national airport Minsk-2, where he went to meet his colleague Pavel Sharamet. Mr Zavadsky’s car was found in the airport, but it is still unknown what happened to him. The body of Dzmitry still has not been found. At that time he was 27 years old.
Officially, the journalist disappearance case was fully investigated. According to the investigators, the journalist was kidnapped by former employees of the Interior Ministry Special Forces Unit Almaz, Valer Ihnatovich and Maxim Malik, as well as a former student of the Interior Academy Alyaksai Guz and Syarhei Savushkin, who has repeatedly been on trial before that. Mr Ihnatovich and Mr Malik were sentenced to life imprisonment.
According to Pavel Sheremet, the reason for the abduction could have been the work of Mr Zavadsky in Chechnya in 1999-2000, during the filming of The Chechen Diary. Mr Zavadsky could gather information about the actions of the Belarusian special forces, who at that time were in Chechnya.
The widow of the journalist, Svyatlana, created a foundation in his name, and in 2001, colleagues of the operator Dzmitry Zavadsky founded a prize For Courage and Professionalism.
