"Nothing dramatic was transmitted." Franak Viachorka commented on the scandal with Alina Kharysava
An investigation is underway into the case of political scientist Alina Kharysava, and it is currently being determined what information was transmitted or not transmitted to the "SBU" (in reality, the KGB), reported Franak Viachorka, chief adviser to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, on the Belsat TV channel. However, as he said, he has "no feeling" that the Belarusian special services received "anything dramatic."
Alina Kharysava and Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya's chief adviser Franak Viachorka at the Reshape conference. Warsaw, June 15, 2025. Photo collage: Tatsiana Verameeva / Belsat
"For now, there is no such feeling that anything dramatic was transmitted. Most likely, it's just correspondence that has already been shown on television and some personal assessments," said Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya's chief adviser Franak Viachorka on "Belsat Studio," commenting on the scandal with Alina Kharysava.
"The regime needed to add color and flavor to this whole story," Viachorka noted.
He believes that the human factor played a role in this situation. Special services look for people's weak spots when they are in a difficult psychological state, and "they write letters, write requests for cooperation, offer a safe return, blackmail loved ones, detain parents, call from relatives' phones":
"This has been happening en masse over the past year. And we instructed all our colleagues, both those who work full-time and those who volunteer part-time, like Alina, not to respond to messages under any circumstances, but as you can see, the human factor still fails."
Viachorka called for ensuring security and information hygiene, not to relax in emigration:
"Many people living abroad do not feel the repressive apparatus, do not feel that the KGB is working. But against us is a huge system, thousands of people work every day looking for our weak spots, so we need to draw conclusions, admit mistakes where they were made, train people. We need to conduct training again every month, every year, it's never too much."
Tsikhanouskaya's adviser also noted that the goal of such KGB operations is not only to try to obtain information. Therefore, it is important to "keep spirits up":
"Their task is to sow distrust so that we do not trust each other, and everyone suspects everyone."