Political technologist Vitaly Shklyarau who was arrested in the summer of 2020 has left Belarus; presumably, he is returning to the United States, TUT.by reports.
On October 24, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo phoned Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Among other things they spoke about ‘the fate of one of the citizens of the United States and the Republic of Belarus’, state-run media reported earlier.
A week ago, Vitaly Shklyarau was released from the KGB prison in Minsk.
The political technologist was detained in Homiel on July, 29 and later charged under Article 342-2 of the Criminal Code (organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order). According to state-owned TVstation ONT, Shklyarau ‘had mobilised [blogger and might-have-been ] Syarhei Tsikhanouski‘s protest electorate around himself’. In early August, Lukashenka publicly made mention of the arrested spin doctor. In his opinion, lots of people had been detained in Belarus, aiming to ‘destabilise the country’.
“Names, surnames, addresses, passwords, meeting places are known. It sometimes looks like a miracle. The media are alerting us that the Americans, the NATO, want to invade us here. Some people have been detained with American passports, married to American women working in the State Department. But they are being vehemently protected by Russian leaders,” said Lukashenka.
Vitaly Shklyarau was born in Homiel, the hometown of Syarhei Tsikhanouski. He studied in Germany, worked in the election campaigns of Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders. His wife is a U.S. citizen, working at the American Embassy in Kyiv. Reportedly, Shklyarau has a diplomatic passport. There were reports about Vitaly Shklyarau’s links to Tsikhanouski’s campaign, but he has repeatedly refuted his having any relation to it. Moreover, he was not in Belarus at the time of those events.
