Belarusian Woman Who Challenged Lukashenko in 2020 Has Died

The death of Halina Filipauna Andrejchyk closes a chapter on a moment that briefly gave international visibility to grassroots dissent in Belarus, where the political crackdown that followed the...

Halina Filipauna Andrejchyk, an 81-year-old labor veteran from Hrodna, Belarus, has died, according to Nasha Niva, a Belarusian independent news outlet. She became known across Belarus in the summer of 2020 after President Alexander Lukashenko publicly criticized her by name following her appearance in a widely circulated video.

Andrejchyk came to public attention on May 29, 2020, when she went to a square in Hrodna and gave an interview to Siarhei Tsikhanouski, a Belarusian blogger who was then traveling the country ahead of the August 2020 presidential election, according to Nasha Niva. In the interview, she encouraged people not to fear the government and said: "If I die, I will still know that I had a taste of freedom."

Tsikhanouski embraced her during the encounter, and she addressed him as "sonny," according to the same report. The video circulated widely inside Belarus and drew significant attention to the early stages of public discontent ahead of the contested August 9, 2020 presidential election.

Lukashenko singled out Andrejchyk for public criticism after the video circulated, according to Nasha Niva. The Belarusian government under Lukashenko had repeatedly sought to suppress public demonstrations and media coverage of dissent in the period leading up to and following the 2020 election.

The August 2020 election, in which Lukashenko claimed victory with 80 percent of the vote, was widely disputed by opposition groups and Western governments. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe stated that the election was neither free nor fair, citing the exclusion of independent candidates and restrictions on observers, according to reporting by Reuters at the time.

Following the contested election result, Belarus experienced its largest sustained protest movement in modern history, with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets across multiple cities, according to BBC News reporting from August and September 2020. The government responded with mass arrests, detention of journalists, and documented use of force against protesters, according to Human Rights Watch reports published in 2020 and 2021.

Tsikhanouski, the blogger who interviewed Andrejchyk, was arrested in May 2020 and was subsequently sentenced to 18 years in prison in December 2021, according to Reuters. His wife, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, stood in his place as a presidential candidate and became the central figure of the opposition movement, relocating to Lithuania after the election.

Andrejchyk was identified by Lukashenko publicly at the time, making her one of the few ordinary citizens to be named directly by the president in connection with the protest movement. Nasha Niva did not report the specific date or cause of her death in the available portion of its report.

As of August 2026, Lukashenko remains in power in Belarus. The European Union and the United States have maintained sanctions against Belarusian officials and entities in connection with the 2020 election and subsequent human rights violations, according to the EU Council and the U.S. Department of the Treasury official records. Belarus has also moved closer to Russia in the intervening period, including allowing Russian military forces to use Belarusian territory during Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, according to NATO official statements.

Andrejchyk's death has not prompted any official government statement in Belarus, according to information available as of this report. The circumstances that brought her to public prominence remain a point of reference in documentation of the 2020 protest period by Belarusian civil society organizations in exile.