Musician Ales Chumakou recounted how a polite Belarusian-speaking KGB agent tried to recruit him

Before his arrest, Ales had not faced close attention from the special services. The first attempt to establish contact by the KGB took place long before his arrest and was informal in nature.

“I never had any ties with the KGB. It always surprised me: a person who travels all over the world, greets all Belarusians in the world, just hugs, shakes hands - and not once was I approached. I lived in my own world, the special services were not interested in me. They first contacted me in 2023.

A Belarusian-speaking guy called, very pleasant, and invited me to a coffee meeting. He said: "You are probably surprised that we in the special services can also speak Belarusian competently." We talked about this and that. No names or information were mentioned. He just said: it happens that people travel back and forth, and we are curious about them.

They probed me: "We see that you are collecting some donations here, so maybe you should contact us, we have a lot of money."

I replied that I had enough. There were no threats or pressure, everything was quite polite. Apparently, they sensed that cooperation was impossible, and that story ended then."

Arrest: "Here he is, Budkin! Everything is found, you are ours"

The arrest operation took place on November 28, 2025. The security forces lured him out of his apartment by deception, which eventually gave the musician the opportunity to take warm clothes with him.

"The arrest on November 28 was unexpected. Although they later said that they had been following me for about ten months. They did not break down the door. I was very politely called out to the street, introduced as neighbors who had supposedly scratched my car. This saved me in many ways! I later saw people at Akrestsina whom GUBOPiK had arrested in just a shirt – it was cold there, and they immediately got sick. But I had a chance to get dressed calmly before the "traffic police" arrived: thermal underwear, several layers of clothing, double socks."

Instead of neighbors or traffic police officers, the musician was met by operatives who first of all began to search for evidence of his "extremist activity" in the digital space.

"I went out onto the steps, and there they very carefully led me back by the arm, bent me over and immediately: "Where's your phone?"

They showed a KGB ID, asked if I understood why I was being detained. In the phone, they immediately, literally in a second, started looking for Siarhei Budkin (head of the Belarusian Council for Culture). Although we never exchanged more than a couple of messages in 20 years of acquaintance. They found the contact, poked the phone in my face: "Here he is, Budkin! Everything is found, you are ours."

A search began at Ales's home, accompanied by disorder and cynical jokes from the officers.

"They went to search the apartment. My mother and father are old sick people, they didn't touch their rooms, they didn't break instruments. But in my room, they created a capital mess. They threw things on the floor, piled them in layers on the bed (chairs, folders with documents) and constantly joked.

One KGB officer kept asking: "How do you sleep on this bed?" I calmly said: "I sleep. My conscience is clear. Everything was fine before your arrival." But he wouldn't calm down, kept repeating this joke to me, thinking I should find it funny. But it wasn't funny at all. They only confiscated the phone – the evidence was there immediately, and that was enough for them."

Interrogation and administrative arrest

The first hours after the detention were spent in KGB offices, where operatives examined contacts in his phone and created the illusion of an imminent release. Later, the man was transferred to the district police department to draw up a formal administrative report.

"At Kozlova Lane, I was interrogated from nine in the morning until eight in the evening. They behaved politely, gave me water, and took me to the toilet. All day they sat in my Telegram and went through all my contacts: "Who is this? And who is this?" An analyst from the next office looked in and said: "Good man." It's like that joke where Lukashenka sorts potatoes: good, bad. They can't even sort potatoes without me!

The pressure was deceptive. They constantly promised: "Let's have one more question, and you'll go home, back to your workshop, to your gusli. Let's have this, like, a barrel of jam and a basket of cookies." They kept me in the dark and instilled hope.

At the Leninsky District Police Department, they threw me into a concrete "monkey cage." They drew up a report alleging that I had grabbed the minibus door and disobeyed orders. I decided not to argue with them and signed this nonsense. In court, the female judge made a terrible distorted face, as if she were talking to some Chikatilo. And the witness, a young policeman who had just finished school, rushed at me, winked, and when asked by the judge if I resisted, nodded: "Yes, I disobeyed!" He didn't care what he said. As a result, I was sentenced to 14 days."

Interrogation at the Investigative Committee: from Article 342 to the Council for Culture

After serving his administrative arrest, Ales Chumakou was not released. He was transferred to the status of a suspect in a criminal case and taken for interrogation to the Investigative Committee.

"When the administrative detention at the Akrestsina detention center ended and I hoped to go home, the same KGB officers met me at the exit. They said: "That's it, back with us again, don't expect to go home." Around the corner, they put me in a minibus, forced me to my knees, and made me travel on the floor all the way to the Investigative Committee."

During the interrogation and the drawing up of protocols, Ales immediately encountered the sheer incompetence of the investigator.

"The first investigator there typed text on the computer with one finger. Just like a monkey with a computer! Error after error. Instead of "I understand," it said "I don't understand," words were stacked on top of each other, the meaning lost. I started correcting the mistakes in the margins, like a school teacher. And she told me: "Are you going to correct my mistakes like in school?! I had enough of school already!" In the end, I signed that nonsense without reading it."

When it came to the substance of the accusations, Ales was tried to be charged with a standard set of political articles. At the same time, the state-appointed lawyer demonstrated complete indifference to her client's fate.

"Initially, they threw a whole standard block of criminal articles at me, just copied from somewhere: 342 (participation in protests), and 130 (inciting hatred), and some "insults." When I asked the state lawyer — a young girl who was simply looking at samples on the table — how to defend myself against 342, she replied: "342? That's what people walked on the street for. Well, everyone walked. I walked too. So just say it's nothing serious." Since I hadn't appeared at any protests and never carried a phone with me, these "street" articles were eventually dropped. Only the "extremist" charge remained."

After the accusations of participation in protests were dropped due to lack of evidence, the investigation focused on finding the musician's connections with independent cultural initiatives.

"They started asking me about the "To the Stars" initiative (they attributed it to the Council for Culture). I had never heard of it in my life. I initially perceived the name "To the Stars" as one word, thinking of Sergei Lukyanenko: Night Watch, Day Watch, vampires gathered here to drink my blood! But it turned out that my real signature was there — possibly signed after a concert without looking.

Eventually, when I started talking about myself, explaining that I am a musician, a master of musical instruments, and not involved in political matters, the investigator suddenly said: "I'm bored." And then the KGB officers took me by the arms and led me to the bus. They decided to "have some fun" so that this girl wouldn't be bored.

Thermal burns and threats of rape: torture in the minivan

Transportation from the Investigative Committee to the detention center was accompanied by physical violence and threats of a sexual nature. KGB officers deliberately inflicted injuries on the musician using special equipment.

"In the minibus, they again put me on the floor, which was covered in something foul-smelling and wet. My handcuffed hands were pulled up to the ceiling behind my back, dislocating my shoulder joints. I have scoliosis and sports injuries to my shoulders — it was unbearably painful.

Then one person held my hands, and the other took a construction lighter — one that emits not just fire, but a stream of gas under pressure. He began to heat these handcuffs until they caused burns. Thermal burns! When I tried to twist away to avoid the stream, I hit the metal nozzle of the lighter. The burns and marks on my hands took nine months to heal afterwards.

On the side seat sat a KGB officer — the blond one with a side part, who played the role of the "bad cop" during the arrest. He had special forged boots, some kind of combat boots, designed specifically for this procedure (no one else wore such boots). And he beat me all the way from the Investigative Committee to Akrestsina. Every three to five seconds I received a blow to the head: from behind, from the front, from above. Moreover, all this time they were not just beating me, but also threatening to rape me.

Then he started kicking me. My entire right side — legs, side, arm — was bruised. One blow from a forged boot landed directly on my elbow. My central nerve went numb, two fingers simply stopped working.

Their sensation only returned four months later. In the pre-trial detention center, I couldn't hold a pen, or even pick up dice for backgammon — they constantly slipped from my hands."

"I didn't sleep properly for 24 days": the punishment cell at Akrestsina

After the beating, Ales ended up in the temporary detention facility in Akrestsina, where he was held in an overcrowded punishment cell with unsanitary conditions and insufficient sleeping space.

"After the torture in the minibus, I, all beaten up, was brought to the temporary detention facility in Akrestsina, already as part of a criminal case. Seven out of ten days I spent in a concrete punishment cell. In size — like a small kitchen room. There were seven to nine of us there. In the center was a bolted iron-wooden blue stool, which we all hated because it blocked all the space. Only 3-4 people could lie down on either side of the stool. The rest sat curled up under the sink, on the toilet pedestal, or leaning against the wall in front of the bars, where you could catch at least a little air from the corridor.

The day was divided into two stages. In the morning, after the night, the stuffiness was terrible — we hung in bunches on the bars and breathed through the cracks.

And in the afternoon it became cold, and we sat huddled together, chattering our teeth. There is no wall near the toilet. If someone needs to go, they go to the pedestal and say: "Guys, important procedure, please turn away!" And everyone stands turned away, looking at a small ceiling window.

I hadn't slept properly for 24 days. When they finally took me to transfer to the pre-trial detention center, I looked in the mirror and didn't recognize myself. My face was green. Through the colorless skin, like that fish that lives at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, all the blood vessels were visible. And black eye sockets. It was a horror movie."

Admission to the pre-trial detention center: "I won't take such a handsome one"

The transfer to the pre-trial detention center was accompanied by a medical examination, which was exclusively formal in nature.

"When I was brought to the pre-trial detention center in Kaliadzichy, the local paramedic looked at my hematomas and bruises and said: "Oh, I won't take such a handsome one!" I had to go to the next office to the major. He calmly filled out a paper that I had supposedly "resisted during detention, and therefore received [the injuries]," put his signature. We returned to the paramedic — he said "Okay" and accepted me. But still, I was kept in quarantine for more days than people usually are."

"I've never seen such tiny radiators in my life": conditions in Kaliadzichy and tightening screws

Conditions of detention in the pre-trial detention center constantly worsened due to the introduction of new restrictions, regular reports for minor violations, and the lack of normal walks.

"Conditions in the pre-trial detention center are constantly changing for the worse, "tightening the screws." Every month there's new news: either you can't sit on the bed, or you can't watch TV (which only worked for two months out of nine anyway), or you can't keep soap dishes on the sink, or you can't dry clothes. Dry wherever you want, even in a bag, so it rots there. Reports come in for everything. One person received a report for simply leaning his soles on the edge of the bed while sitting at the table."

In addition to endless everyday restrictions and the threat of reports, the physical conditions of detention themselves became an additional ordeal. The cold in the cells was combined with the absence of proper walks, and the organization of daily life was entirely subject to the absurd logic of the guards.

"The cells were very cold. The radiator had only three sections. I've never seen such tiny radiators for such a room in my life! What they call a "yard" for walks is simply misleading people. It's the same bare concrete cell as the one we sit in, and there's never any sky overhead anyway. There's just a little more air because instead of a concrete ceiling, there's polycarbonate. It's supposedly transparent, but in reality, it's not transparent at all. They used to take us there once a week, and then even less often — once every ten days.

The distribution to these yards is a lottery. Eight people could be thrown into a yard designed for two. In general, we called the local staff by colors: "green ones," "blue ones," "black ones." It was easier that way to immediately understand who was being talked about. And so I asked one of the young "green ones" (convoy guards who organize walks): "Why not throw 8 people into an eight-person yard, and two into a two-person one?" The answer was like in an army joke: "We do things as they're established, you're introducing disorder here!"

A separate hell is smoking in the cells. Smoking is forbidden during walks, so everyone smokes in the toilet (a hole in the floor, separated by a meter-high wooden shield). Out of eight people, six could smoke.

The ventilation is non-existent. The smoke was so thick that you couldn't see your cellmate. We joked like in the cartoon "Hedgehog in the Fog": "Seriozha, I can't see you! Hedgehog! Horse!" I brought freshly washed clothes home in sealed bags, and they are still permeated with that cigarette smoke."

Psychological pressure: spotlight in the face, Russian pop music, and concert dreams

In addition to everyday difficulties, the administration of the detention centers used sensory pressure: continuous lighting and loud music, which interfered with the recovery of the nervous system.

"A separate form of abuse is sound and light. At Akrestsina, the radio worked all day, from 6 am to 10 pm. Once it was even turned on at full volume at three in the morning — maybe they made a mistake, or maybe they wanted to abuse someone. In the pre-trial detention center, the radio is forcibly turned on in the mornings and during walks. It sounds terrible through an iron speaker, which is absolutely not designed for music. And it's constantly the same thing — Russian pop music mixed with foreign. For me, a person raised on folk and rock, these were hellish torments.

And to sleep peacefully and recover — simply no chance. During the day, you can't close your eyes, the surveillance camera works 24/7, they immediately shout over the loudspeaker: "Who's sleeping there?! State your last name! Report." And at night, a "moon" constantly shines in your face — a bright LED spotlight of white light. No matter how you cover yourself, no matter how you tie your head with clothing, you still can't sleep normally. You just close your eyes and watch a movie on the verge of wakefulness.

For nine months straight, I dreamed of long conversations with friends over a cup of tea. Concerts dreamed in real-time — according to the set-list from the first to the last song! How I stand on stage and play, sing, hear all the arrangements and instruments, how I turn to each of the musicians, how we return to the dressing room, the after-party. In this dream, you really act, the organism continues to function without the ability to shut down. This is not rest at all."

Library and book lottery

The only legal way to pass the time in the cell remained reading. However, the book ordering system worked exclusively according to its own unpredictable rules.

"The library there is good, I reread a lot of books. From classics to modern, from Tolstoy to Ayn Rand, there's Uladzimir Karatkevich, Vasil Bykaŭ. They immediately warned: Svetlana Alexievich is officially banned there, so don't write requests for her.

But it's almost impossible to influence what you'll get — it's a lottery. We dutifully, as usual, wrote a general request from the cell once a month, stating what we would like to read. Then, on the librarian's advice, we wrote separate requests for a specific book throughout the month. In my case, these papers never worked once. For other people, it accidentally worked once or twice in all nine months. So these requests could have been not written at all. They just brought random books. Only once did they bring me, by agreement, the second volume of a book I had read first — they actually responded to the request. But, fortunately, even by chance, they brought good, artistic works."

Medical care in captivity: "Everything is like in Latvia"

Medical assistance in detention centers was limited to basic medications, and requests to specialized professionals were ignored for months.

"When people get sick, at best they are given ibuprofen. Once I was hit: fever, loss of smell — a COVID-like state. I wrote a tearful request for bed rest.

They took me to the medical unit and forgot me in the corridor. For three hours I stood facing the wall, hands behind my back. All the doctors had already left. Three "green ones" walk by, one laughs: "Imagine, I look into the medical unit, and they forgot a prisoner! Imagine what a mess we have here!"

When they finally took me to the therapist, she looked at me and stated: "I won't take your temperature, you don't look like you need bed rest by eye!"

From the icy water (just like from a well) and the hot prison food, which had to be eaten quickly, my teeth cracked, and fillings fell out. My hearing started to worsen. My requests to the ENT specialist were ignored for four months. The funniest thing was that at this time, the propaganda TV was playing: "But in Latvia, prisoners are not allowed to see doctors! Prisoners' requests are used to wipe themselves!" This phrase — "everything is like in Latvia" — then took on new colors for us."

Court: Belarusian song as extremism

During the trial, evidence and defense arguments were not taken into account. Musical activity was qualified as a crime against the state.

"The court resembled the Soviet 1930s: it didn't matter what you did or if you did anything at all. If it was ordered to shoot, they would shoot. It wasn't a court, but communication with robots: they have a program "1, 2, 3, 4," and it absolutely doesn't matter what you tell them.

The prosecutor herself stated: to accuse, one must prove intent and awareness. I was accused of "joining" the Council for Culture. I replied: I don't even know its composition! In any country, this would have to be proven, but here it was simply ignored. Instead, in the KGB, I was forced to sign a paper stating that I "organized for the destabilization of the constitutional order" by singing folk songs. That was enough for them.

That is, officially, I was convicted for recording an album of songs on Belarusian folk instruments.

The security forces clung to the assistance from the Council for Culture, but can this ridiculous sum be called money for recording? It's largely funds from my own pocket and the pockets of my listeners. Folk isn't rap or pop, you don't make money here. It's about creating roots and pillars of culture, a subsidized affair.

The album has 13 tracks. These are well-known songs from the repertoire of, for example, "Pesnyary," as well as unique regional folk songs. There is nothing extremist in it! But what should have been broadcast on state TV channels became direct evidence of a crime for the authorities."

Today and the future

Ales, along with other political prisoners, was pardoned on September 16, 2026, as a result of negotiations between US Special Envoy John Kohle and Lukashenka. After his release and forced deportation, Ales found himself in Warsaw. He is now focused on restoring his health and preparing for the release of the album that led to his imprisonment.

"I'm in Warsaw now, currently doing paperwork. Invite me to apartment concerts — I'll gladly come, we'll sing, we'll talk.

I need to see doctors, get an MRI, check my hearing. Losing hearing for a musician is a tragedy. I'll manage somehow. If anything, I'll play Beethoven, but I'd like to keep what I have.

And my album of 13 tracks, unique regional versions of well-known songs, is already finished. We planned to release it last New Year. Well, we'll be a year late. It will come out in autumn. Perhaps just in time for the anniversary of my arrest."

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