Maryna Adamovich: Statkevich Told The Belarusians That He Would Not Abandon Them

The wife of the Belarusian opposition leader told about the conversation with her husband at the border.

In an interview with the Lithuanian edition LRT Marina Adamovich, wife of Belarusian opposition leader and political prisoner Nikolai Statkevich, told about her husband's first call in recent years, the disappearance report and why he refused to leave Belarus.

The media wrote that Statkevich had returned to the colony in Hluboki, but the politician's wife Marina Adamovich emphasizes: there's no exact information about it.

Adamovich filed a report on her husband's disappearance, but there was no reaction of law enforcement officials: they were more interested in the details of the calls than the fact of the disappearance of the politician.

She was informed about Statkevich's release by his son Yuri. Marina recalls the shock and shouting "no," and then happiness at being able to hear his voice again.

Statkevich called his journey a "one-way road" and refused to leave Belarus. "Only patriots are being taken out of the country, what will happen to it?"

"Unfortunately, I know nothing about where Nikolai is now. Many people have contacted me about the information in one of the media that he was returned to Glubokoye. This may be true, because Nikolai himself speculated that he may be returned to Glubokoye. But the accuracy of the source cannot be confirmed in any way," said Marina Adamovich.

In her opinion, there are reasons to doubt the reliability of this information.

"For 2 years and 7 months of incommunicado nobody managed to get any information about Nikolai, about his condition, about what is happening to him. And suddenly in such a short time we get information that he was returned to the colony in Glubokoye. Obviously, someone needs it," Adamovich believes.

Marina's attempts to confirm the information about her husband's whereabouts directly in the colony in Hlubokoye did not bring any result.

"Traditionally, no one gives any information by phone in Hlubokoye. They say: 'How do we know that you are his wife? Come here," says the woman.

On Sunday evening, the wife of the missing politician on the Belarusian-Lithuanian border filed a report on the disappearance of the man to the police, outlining all the circumstances, under which the connection with Nikolai Statkevich broke down. She didn't receive a reply.

She specifies that the process took a lot of time and the officers were most interested not in the disappearance of her husband, but in the details of calls from the border.

"I think that in the circumstances, when there is a lot of evidence, including from CCTV cameras, probably some other topics should have been covered in more detail, and not what phone he called from," Adamovich emphasizes.

Marina learned about her husband's release from her son Yuri, as she was outside Belarus.

"Nikolai couldn't reach me. It's always been like this: as soon as he is free, even if it's such a "freedom", the first thing he does is to call me, ask someone for a phone and call. Even if it was 24 hours and I couldn't meet him for some reason or I just didn't know where to meet him. It was not always nearby: sometimes he was taken to the police station, sometimes somewhere further away. Having failed to reach me, he called my son, and Yura contacted me," she says.

The first emotions, Marina recalls, were unexpected: her son shouted to her in Belarusian: "Yon vyartaetsa, yon vyartaetsa ў Belarus".

"I could not immediately understand who and what it was about. That is, it was very unexpected. And then he shouted that Nikolai had been released and he was returning to Belarus. And then I just ... I just screamed: "No." I just shouted at the top of my voice: 'No'," she adds.

Unable to get in touch directly, she took a phone from a girl nearby, dictated the number to her son, and Yuri connected them to Nikolai. When they managed to hear each other's voices, the first emotion, she says, was happiness.

"He confirmed that he had not had any communication since February [2023]. But he kept writing to me, as I kept writing to him. And he never doubted for a second, nor did I, that we continued to support each other. I won't talk about our personal feelings, the words we said to each other. But he managed to say that he was going back to Belarus. I said: "Well wait for me, please wait for me. I want to hug you so much, I haven't seen you for so long." He said: "It's impossible, it's a one-way road." That is, he could not stay waiting for me to get there," says Marina.

"He also said that he looked at the patriots being taken out and asked: "And then what will happen to this country?"

Well, actually, we managed to say almost nothing else to each other. The only thing he told me was how worried he was about me all this time."

Nikalai Statkevich's decision not to leave Belarus, according to Marina Adamovich, turned out to be very predictable and obvious. That's why she was most afraid of such a development.

"I had no doubt that in case of deportation attempts, Nikolai would do everything to return to Belarus. And after that, obviously, his release would become more problematic. Maybe that's why I shouted 'No' when I heard that they were trying to deport him and he was coming back," emphasizes the politician's wife.

"He has always believed that any values, any beliefs are worth exactly as much as a person is willing to pay for them - this is one of his basic beliefs. If a person who declares some socially important values, then shows society that personal security is more important to him, then, as a rule, there is a mass rejection of these values, their leveling. Nikolai cannot allow this to happen. This is another of the reasons why he stayed in Belarus," Adamovich says.

She says it was always important for Statkevich to preserve his inner freedom, dignity and the right to make his own choice, as well as to "break the game" - to remain a subject, preserve his free decision and stay in the country.

Marina admits that no matter how she feels about this decision, she will always support it. "These are the days I repeat very often: in 2015, when Nikolai was released, a huge number of people came up to us in the city, shook his hand, asked to take selfies. And very many people asked: "Well, you're not going to leave, are you? You're not going to leave us, are you?" Nikolay said, "No, I'm not going anywhere," she recalls.

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