On 18 May 2021 security forces searched the offices of Belarus’s most popular independent outlet, TUT.BY. That began a crackdown after which 15 people were jailed on contested charges. One of them — CEO Lyudmila Chekina — remains behind bars. Former editor-in-chief Marina Zolotova described what Chekina is going through on the painful anniversary.

What happened on 18 May 2021

That morning investigators from the State Control Committee’s financial investigations department raided TUT.BY offices in Minsk and regional cities and searched employees’ homes. Access to the site was blocked; leaders faced criminal cases including tax evasion charges.

Among those detained were editor-in-chief Marina Zolotova and CEO Lyudmila Chekina. Eleven people spent long months in pretrial detention; Yulia Chernyavskaya, widow of TUT.BY founder Yury Zisser, was under house arrest for eight months. Later the portal and its archive were listed as extremist; in spring 2026 authorities declared hundreds of thousands of TUT.BY items extremist while state bodies still use them.

Sentences and who is free

On 17 March 2023 Minsk City Court sentenced Zolotova and Chekina to 12 years in a general-regime colony on a bundle of charges (taxes, incitement of hatred, calls against national security). The Supreme Court upheld the verdict in summer 2023. Nine other defendants were pardoned on the tax-related part of the case.

Zolotova was released in spring 2026 amid a wave of political prisoner releases. Chekina, according to human rights groups and media, remains in prison — the only key figure in the TUT.BY case still serving time.

Zolotova on Chekina

In an anniversary post published by Zerkalo (original: Marina Zolotova’s Telegram), the former editor wrote she had hoped she would never need to publish it:

“Lyudmila Chekina, our wonderful Mila, has been behind bars for 5 years. 1,826 days. It is hard, it hurts and it is unjust.”

Over that time, she says, Chekina could not say goodbye to her father when he died; her son finished university, completed military service and returned home. In pretrial jail she spent two years and three months in one cell, helped cellmates with appeals, drew, read and practised yoga; in the colony she discussed a film on Michelangelo with her unit and quoted Brodsky.

Now, Zolotova writes, Chekina is labelled as involved in “terrorist activity” — no money transfers, one phone call a month as a “persistent offender”, health problems including her back; in early March she was sent to punishment cell for five days. Zolotova stresses Chekina “does not like to complain”, but hopes the ordeal will soon end so she can hug her son.

In a long Zerkalo interview after release, Zolotova already called it unjust that Chekina remains in prison — someone who “never interfered in editorial work” and became a “hostage” of the case.

Anniversary and the last service

Around the five-year mark, the last TUT.BY service stopped working — another sign that the media millions used to open each morning was erased from public life.

Part of the former team continued at Zerkalo (later also banned in Belarus). Chekina’s story is a reminder the TUT.BY raid is not only blocked domains but a human cost still being paid.