Security forces created a social media account in the name of the deceased grandmother of a volunteer fighting for Ukraine
They used a tombstone photo of the woman as the avatar.
Artsyom Markin. Photos from his Threads, here and throughout.
Artsyom Markin is a Belarusian anarchist who is currently fighting for Ukraine. He recently created an account on Threads, where he talks about himself and answers questions.
Artsyom's very first post went viral: in one day it garnered more than 76 thousand views and about 10 thousand likes. Mostly, Ukrainians are thanking the Belarusian for what he is doing.
However, there is also another side to the coin. Belarusian security forces saw the account and, to put moral pressure on the fighter, created an account for his deceased grandmother.
It should be noted that Artsyom's mother died when the boy was only 9 years old — his grandmother raised him. It was not easy for the woman, as she also supported her Russian husband, who knew nothing but drinking. Even in childhood, his grandmother told her grandson: "Muscovites only know how to drink and wage war."
When the war in Ukraine started, the woman, who was already 87 years old, said: "Muscovites got involved in the wrong place, they will never defeat Ukraine."
Artsyom himself was forced to leave his homeland after the 2020 elections. The young man could not return to Belarus even for the funeral of his beloved grandmother.
And now, Belarusian security forces have created an Instagram account with the name Emma Andreyevna and a photo of the deceased woman — a tombstone photo. The fighter learned about this when the account tried to follow his page.
Artsyom explains that the account was created to discuss the fate of an apartment in Minsk that he was supposed to inherit.
Artsyom Markin is a Belarusian anarchist. In 2017, he was detained in Minsk for participating in the "March of Non-Parasites". In 2018, Artsyom was detained by the FSB in Russia at the scientific conference "Pramukhin Readings", and was then recognized as a threat to Russia's national security.
In 2021, he left Belarus due to political persecution. He was first in Georgia, then flew to Ukraine, where he planned to legalize his stay. But problems arose at Zhuliany airport: border guards gave him a document prohibiting entry into the country. Human rights defenders dealt with Artsyom's case.
Now he is fighting for Ukraine — he has been operating unmanned aerial vehicles for two years.
In the comments, Artsyom explains why he went to fight: "If very briefly and honestly: a sharp sense of injustice and a desire to find new meanings, to somehow get out of the depression that engulfed me after fleeing my homeland. 'A slave to his freedom' — that's not just written for no reason."
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