After the start of the full-scale invasion, one of the key sources of information about the events in Belarus became the Belarusian Gayun resource, an independent monitoring project founded by Belarusian activists. It became especially popular in the first months of the war thanks to the operational coverage of the movement of Russian troops, missile launches and military activity. The project received the symbolic name “Gayun” – in honor of the mythical character of Belarusian mythology, who makes sure that there are no foreigners in the forests.
“Belarusian Gayun” began work at the beginning of January 2022. In April 2022, the channel had more than 360,000 subscribers, of which 90% were Ukrainians, and the rest were Belarusians. As of February 25, 2023, the number of subscribers to the project’s Telegram channel exceeded half a million.
The channel is broken and stopped
Yesterday it became known that “Belarusian Gayun” ceased to exist. You can read about the suspension of the monitoring project in the same channels. The reasons for the decision are not disclosed, but earlier the founder of the project, Anton Motolko, reported about his hack. According to him, early in the morning on February 5, unknown persons gained unauthorized access to a chat with a bot, where information was received from users.
Anton Motolko emphasized that it is not known exactly how much data could have been downloaded during the time that the third-party account had access. He admitted that the error that caused this situation was solely his own and resulted from the action of the human factor. It is noteworthy that two weeks ago, Anton Motolko gave a speech interview on the RBC channel, where he talked about the repressions in Belarus, the anti-human actions of the Lukashenka regime, propaganda and the work of his Telegram channel. Perhaps the almost two-hour interview, in which Motolko spoke very harshly about the use of Russian military facilities on the territory of the country and the assistance of the Lukashenko regime in aggression against Ukraine, caused increased interest in his channel from the relevant structures.
Threat from Belarus
Over the years, “Belarusian Gayun” has become an important source of information not only for Belarusians, but also for Ukrainian media. The project regularly provided operational data on military activity on the territory of Belarus, which helped to illuminate the situation in the northern direction and analyze threats to Ukraine. Thanks to the accuracy and speed of the messages, “Gayun” has won the trust of both journalists and the general audience.
The founders say that the idea to create the channel arose after a noticeable concentration of Russian troops on the territory of Belarus, in particular the Kadyrov and the Russian Guards, who usually do not participate in exercises. At first, information was collected through reports from local residents. We thought it would work out, says channel founder Anton Motolko in an interview with RBC, but, unfortunately, it didn’t work out. Then the founders officially announced the launch of the channel for monitoring military activity.
Belarusians, who in the overwhelming majority do not support the war, actively helped the project. Tens of thousands of people sent messages about troop movements and any suspicious activity. The channel quickly gained popularity among Belarusian users who had an anti-war stance. And also among Ukrainians who valued the information from the channel, which became for them a source of early warning about danger. It was thanks to the Belarusians that the residents of the northern regions of Ukraine could find out about the launch of missiles even before the air alert was activated. The channel received messages from grateful Ukrainian subscribers, who said that thanks to operational information, they went down to the shelter in time and did not become victims of enemy shelling. In general, everything that happened on the territory of Belarus was of interest to Ukrainians living in the immediate vicinity of it – is there a concentration of troops there? Are the movements of the military and weapons noticed? The channel provided such information while acting as a fact-checker, as all information had to be verified. Gayun fought disinformation and gave Ukrainian subscribers an idea of the real situation in Belarus in the context of a full-scale invasion.
However, due to increased repression, obtaining information has become much more difficult. In the first weeks of the war, people sent a huge volume of messages to the chatbot, about 5-10 messages per minute. They had to be quickly processed and checked before being published on the channel.
Arrests of “Gayun” informants
Anton Motolko says that Russian counter-intelligence was working on their sources of information. Belarusians and Russians traveled to small towns and villages to determine the sources of the information leak. Activists were arrested, searches were conducted and people who could be connected to the data transfer were prosecuted. And it was their mistake, because the information was transmitted by completely different people – from a police officer to a cleaner of the executive committee, who had something to report and knew where to write about it. At the same time, some of the first informers of “Gayun” were arrested, and in this Anton Motolko sees his own mistake. In order to confirm the veracity of the data, at the beginning of its existence, the channel provided many photos and videos, by which it was possible to identify the addressee of the message. Later, the founders of the channel realized that in Belarus even a newsstand has a video camera that can allow people to be identified. Their information policy has changed: “Gayun” began to care about the safety of its informants, focusing on the sad experience of exposures and arrests.
Despite the threats, the activists continued to gather information. Some people left abroad, but continued to maintain contact with friends and relatives in Belarus. The obtained data were transmitted through trusted channels to Poland, Lithuania or the Czech Republic in order to avoid persecution.
The risks for the project participants were serious. The founder of the channel was included in the list of terrorists, and the Belarusian authorities recognized the project as an extremist organization. Despite this, the “Belarusian Gayun” project remains an important source of information for monitoring the situation in Belarus and helps Ukrainians and the international community monitor military activity.
“Gayun” was recognized as an “extremist organization”
On the territory of Belarus, for any interaction with the so-called “extremist formations” you can get up to six years in prison. Moreover, even the simple opening of a Telegram bot, without any actions, is considered a fact of interaction, for which punishment will follow.
If we are talking about photo or video recording of military operations or the transfer of information about them, this can already be classified as espionage, for which a much more severe punishment is provided – from 10 to 15 years of imprisonment.
This creates a situation where Belarusians become very cautious. They try to avoid unnecessary contacts and protect themselves and their families as much as possible. However, many of them still pass on information to the Ukrainian military and media, as well as to independent Belarusian publications.
This became especially evident after the arrival of the “Wagnerians” in Belarus. When the first group of mercenaries arrived in mid-July after Yevhen Prigozhin’s failed rebellion, the number of reports from local residents increased dramatically. People submitted photos, drawings of bunk and triple beds, pictures of tents and other information.
At the time, Oleksandr Lukashenko said the mercenaries would “train” Belarusian soldiers for free, while neighboring countries expressed concern about their presence. At first, the situation looked like a fake, because Prigozhin is known for his tricks. But as a result, everything that the Belarusians reported turned out to be true.
It was important for “Gayun” to make sure that people know where to write and how to convey information as soon as something happens. For example, during the fall of Shahed in Kalinkovichi, there was a sharp surge in messages. This showed how important it is to have confidence in independent platforms where critical incidents can be reported.
Infographic: IA “FACT”
Content analysis of Telegram channel messages shows which topics are most often mentioned by project informants. In particular, these are data on the movement of aircraft, flights of Russian military aircraft, actions of kamikaze drones, as well as rotations of military units.
“Belarusian Gayun” carefully records flight routes, possible explosions and “comments” of local authorities. Thanks to this work, the project became an important source of information for the media and analytical centers.
