Police are investigating whether it was a suicide or a murder made to look like suicide.
KYIV, Ukraine — A Belarusian activist who ran a group in Ukraine helping Belarusians fleeing persecution was found dead in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, local police said Tuesday. Vitaly Shishov, leader of the Kyiv-based Belarusian House in Ukraine, was found hanged in one of the city’s parks not far from his home, police said in a statement. A probe has been launched, with police investigating whether it was a suicide or a murder made to look like suicide, head of Ukraine’s National Police Igor Klymenko told reporters on Tuesday. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is keeping a close eye on the case, according to his spokesman, Serhiy Nykyforov, while Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba promised on Twitter that “Ukraine will do everything possible to fully investigate the case.” “It is of utmost importance for us to reveal the truth about his tragic death,” Kuleba said. Shishov’s Belarusian girlfriend, Bazhena Zholudz, said that she doesn’t believe that he could have killed himself. “I don’t believe in suicide, nothing in Vitaly’s conduct signaled his intention to kill himself,” she said. “He didn’t leave any note or message. We were together that morning and he just went out for a jog.” Zholudz added that Shishov had recently noted that he was being shadowed. “He recently noted vehicles and people who were following him,” she said. The Belarusian House in Ukraine, which helps Belarusians fleeing persecution with their legal status in Ukraine, accommodation and employment, also said that Shisov was recently being followed by strangers. It noted that “both local sources and our people in Belarus” have alerted the group to the possibility of “various provocations, including kidnapping and liquidation.” “There is no doubt that this was a planned operation by security operatives to liquidate a Belarusian, dangerous for the regime. We will continue to fight for the truth about Vitaly’s death,” the group said. About 300 people rallied Tuesday outside the Belarusian Embassy in Kyiv, many holding his portrait. Belarus was rocked by months of protests, which were triggered by President Alexander Lukashenko’s re-election to a sixth term in an August 2020 vote that the opposition and the West saw as rigged.
