“I couldn’t even withdraw the money.” Belarusian journalists’ bank accounts still blocked in Ukraine

“My card was blocked again in the mid­dle of March 2023,” shares the jour­nal­ist. “I vis­it­ed a bank office to inquire about cash with­draw­al. They said there was no such option. The only way was to pro­vide anoth­er bank account’s details for a trans­fer. How­ev­er, none of the Belaru­sians I know have an account.”

Even an attempt to con­tact the sup­port ser­vice, accord­ing to the cor­re­spon­dent, did not bring any results: the bank has blocked calls from Belaru­sian clients since the accounts were asso­ci­at­ed with the phone num­bers.

“I know that the deputies of the ‘For a Free Belarus’ fac­tion have been con­tact­ed, but so far there has been no reac­tion from them,” Ales Minau added. “I have also sent a peti­tion to the Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice of Ukraine, explain­ing why I con­sid­er the mea­sure unfound­ed. I have been told that the let­ter has been accept­ed. The answer should come in two weeks, but I don’t have much hope.

Now the jour­nal­ist coop­er­ates with sev­er­al edi­tions in the Euro­pean Union and says that the only solu­tion to receive mon­ey is bring­ing it in cash from abroad. How­ev­er, this is not an easy task, giv­en the obsta­cles for get­ting in and out of Ukraine.

Some Belaru­sians ask their Ukrain­ian friends to open an account in their name, but this is not secure and involves extra prob­lems with Inter­net bank­ing.

Recall that Belaru­sians’ bank accounts in Ukraine were first blocked imme­di­ate­ly after a mas­sive inva­sion by Russ­ian troops in Feb­ru­ary-March 2022.

How­ev­er, thanks to the inter­ven­tion of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, the accounts of some Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists were unblocked. A year lat­er, how­ev­er, the prob­lem arose again. In March-April 2023, Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists once again faced the inabil­i­ty to use bank appli­ca­tions and make trans­fers. The prob­lem has not been solved to date.

Read more:

«Extremist» media to lose Belarusian domain names

Belarusian journalists win action against Belarus

«Extremist» media to lose Belarusian domain names