Young activists based in Europe are looking beyond the established opposition, building networks, training their peers, and planning for a new Belarus.
I met Liza Prokopchik a few weeks before the May elections to the Coordination Council of the Belarusian opposition. She spoke quickly, sometimes sharply, with little patience for diplomatic phrasing. At 26, with several arrests behind her and an escape from Belarus hidden in a military truck, she now heads Maladziovy Nastup (Youth Onslaught), one of the youth factions that competed in those elections.
“Freedom is a territory that can turn Belarus into the kind of place where Belarusians would actually want to live,” she told me – not with pathos, but as an obvious fact long overdue to be stated aloud.
A Generation That Started Fighting Before 2020
Prokopchik was one of the many thousands of Belarusians who massed on the streets of Minsk after the disputed reelection of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka in August 2020. Yet, to understand today’s Belarusian exiled activists, it is important to remember that for many young people, the 2020 protests were not the beginning of their political lives. They simply made visible a generation already in conflict with Lukashenka’s rule.
The regime responded with brutal suppression of rallies and the arrest of thousands, nearly 1,000 of whom remain behind bars. Like many others, Prokopchik left the country yet remained politically engaged. Though she has lived in Poland for several years now, her gaze remains fixed on Minsk.
Her activism began at the age of 18, during the 2017 protests against the so-called “parasite tax” – a law that forced officially unemployed people to pay a special levy. Those actions became the largest protests in Belarus since the 2010 elections and served as the first political school for many young people.
Prokopchik’s first arrest resulted in 13 days in detention.
“The memories from that time are still felt today,” she says.
She was detained again in the spring of 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when, as the authorities were preparing for a military parade despite rising deaths, she and other Youth Bloc activists organized a protest with a symbolic coffin. Her parents, who had come from the city of Grodno, spent the entire night visiting Minsk police departments searching for their daughter. She was sentenced to five days in jail.
After the events of August 2020, Prokopchik coordinated the student movement at Minsk State Linguistic University. Students held assemblies, organized marches to the rector’s office, and built barricades inside the building. Some lecturers began to join them.
“We literally pulled people out of the hands of the security forces,” she recalls.
What the Coordination Council Is – and Isn’t
2020 to facilitate a peaceful transfer of power once Lukashenka somehow left power. Six years later, it remains the closest thing that the Belarusian democratic movement has to a representative political assembly in exile. It is neither a government-in-exile nor a parliament with executive authority. Instead, it serves as a forum where opposition parties, civic initiatives, and independent activists debate strategy, adopt political resolutions, and try to coordinate their work with other democratic institutions, including the office of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and the “united transitional cabinet” that she heads. Tsikhanouskaya is the exiled leader of the Belarusian democratic movement who ran against Lukashenka in the 2020 election and is often recognized abroad as the country’s president-elect.
In May 2026, Belarusians around the world – local human rights organizations estimate that between 150,000 and 200,000 people left the country after 2020 – elected members of the Coordination Council for the fourth time, through online voting. A total of 2,113 people participated, well under the turnout for the previous round of voting, choosing from 174 candidates from nine lists competing for 80 seats. According to preliminary results announced, the coalition of former Belarusian Culture Minister Pavel Latushko and the “For Freedom” movement received the most votes, around 42%.
Maladziovy Nastup’s list was also elected, as one of the first youth political groups to join the council.
At the same time, the council remains controversial. Critics argue that it has little influence on events inside Belarus, communicates poorly with the wider diaspora, and often appears consumed by internal disputes rather than real political strategy. Supporters counter that, despite all its shortcomings, it remains the only democratically elected representative institution of the Belarusian opposition and an important platform for maintaining political continuity after the 2020 protests.
What Europe Teaches
For many young Belarusians, crossing the border amid large-scale emigration in the wake of the clampdown was not only a physical move but also a change in political status. They went from participants in street protests to emigrants who had to rebuild their lives in a different institutional and cultural environment.
Studying at European universities and engaging in local civic and political processes gave them a new set of tools. Democracy stopped being an abstract goal and became a daily practice: coalition-building, record keeping, negotiations between different interest groups, and public accountability. Protest-style communication gradually gave way to more institutional forms of work, including the preparation of analytical reports and policy briefs.
At the same time, the experience of exile has been ambivalent and goes far beyond professionalization.
Prokopchik recalls an episode at a conference in Brussels where she was mistaken for a waitress. According to her, it was not deliberate discrimination, but rather a reflection of her position in a space dominated by representatives of more established institutions. For her, this moment became an example of a broader problem: the constant need to prove one’s right to participate in political discussion on equal terms.
She describes this as a recurring experience for many young activists from Eastern Europe working in Western political circles and the NGO scene. In response, a persistent but non-confrontational political style formed, based on perseverance and long-term engagement rather than sharp public gestures.
No Unity, and That’s Okay
Belarusian youth in exile cannot be viewed as a single political movement. It is more accurate to speak of a fragmented ecosystem of organizations and initiatives with no stable centralized coordination mechanism.
Accurate counts of their numbers don’t exist, but clearly, tens of thousands of students have left the country since 2020. According to Statistics Poland, the number of Belarusian students in Polish universities rose from approximately 4,000 in 2019 to over 10,000 by 2023. Lithuania, Germany, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands recorded similar dynamics.
Maladziovy Nastup is just one of several youth political structures in the diaspora. The groups’ visions for Belarus’s future differ noticeably. Some emphasize national identity and language, others take a harder line on Russia, while still others prioritize pragmatism over ideology.
Organizationally, this environment consists of many overlapping initiatives: student associations, as well as many projects run by the Belarusian National Youth Council (RADA), media outlets, and others. (RADA is an independent umbrella organization and voluntary union that represents democratic youth NGOs, operating underground and in exile). Coordination among them is limited, however, and joint strategies emerge only episodically.
Ekaterina Shulgan, founder of the libertarian-oriented Belarusian Students for Freedom, sees this fragmentation not as a failure but as a natural stage in the development of a political environment in exile. This group of around 30 people organizes events and lectures attended by hundreds of Belarusians. In her opinion, a significant portion of young Belarusians are gradually moving away from formalized opposition politics and preferring small, functional forms of self-organization focused on concrete tasks.
Shulgan’s organization deliberately distances itself from the major opposition structures. She says she does not see them offering effective representation or a clear model of political participation for the younger generation.
“I see a lot of words, but I don’t see concrete actions on how they have improved the lives of Belarusians abroad,” she adds.
From her perspective, an important factor in this transformation is the younger generation’s lack of long experience living under the Soviet system or the difficult first years of post-Soviet transformation.
“Unlike the older Belarusian democratic opposition, we don’t have this background. I understand how hard it is to shed it, how difficult it is to step away from the system you’ve lived in your entire life. The youth have become much more open to change. As sharp as it may sound, the future belongs to the young,” Shulgan says.
Skepticism Toward the 2020 Leaders
The leaders of the 2020 protest movement – Tsikhanouskaya, Latushko, and others – took on enormous political responsibility at a time when most potential participants either left the country or came under heavy pressure. Their personal courage in this context is beyond doubt.
However, a part of the younger generation is more critical of these structures and leaders.
“I respect many of the 2020 leaders, but they rarely admit their mistakes,” says Prokopchik. “This reflects a persistent political culture in which publicly acknowledging errors is seen as a sign of weakness.”
She is particularly critical of the Coordination Council. According to her, it was created too late, after the mass protest energy had already begun to decline. Among the main reasons for its lack of effectiveness, she cites a dearth of organizational experience, closed decision-making processes, and an unwillingness to take responsibility during a crisis.
At the same time, her assessments are not entirely negative. Regarding Latushko (a former diplomat and minister of culture who became a key figure of the 2020 opposition), she takes a more cautious position: “I want to believe that his motivation is sincere.”
Shulgan, by contrast, maintains a significantly greater distance. As the founder of a libertarian student initiative, she deliberately avoids close cooperation with the old opposition structures. “I don’t see what they are doing that would make me want them to represent me,” she says.
A more complex and compromise-oriented position is held by Alina Kharisova – a political analyst working directly in Tsikhanouskaya’s office. Now 24, her political socialization began in a European context when she was studying in Germany, which has considerably influenced her perception of the Belarusian opposition environment, particularly the lack of horizontal communication and weak institutional discipline.
Her assessment of the 2020 generation combines recognition of their role with criticism of the movement’s current state. She has a working relationship with Tsikhanouskaya. She feels genuine solidarity with Viktor Babaryka and Maria Kalesnikava – well-known opposition politicians who spent several years in prison but recently gained their freedom. However, she says she never saw Latushko as a real leader, but rather as someone from the previous stage of Belarusian politics.
At the same time, Kharisova notes the growing fragmentation, personalization of influence, and weakening of coordination between groups. “The level of unity that surprised the world in 2020 has significantly decreased today,” she says.
Her practical approach is to work within existing structures and gradually strengthen the influence of the younger generation, promoting more modern and liberal ideas from within.
Two Visions of Belarus
The young Belarusians I spoke with no longer see themselves as a diaspora in waiting. However, their ideas about what Belarus should look like after possible changes widely vary.
As noted, Shulgan envisions a model close to libertarian ideals and nationally oriented.
“I want Belarusians to unlock their entrepreneurial potential and try to build something of their own,” Shulgan says. “To create their own capital, which they will pass down to their children and grandchildren. In the future, I want it to be Belarusian-speaking, to restore our cultural and national code. I want less state involvement in people’s lives and more privacy – so there is something worth fighting for.”
Shulgan takes a pragmatic view of European integration: open borders and exchanges and yes, accelerated EU integration, if not immediately. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she has become more favorable toward cooperation with NATO, although she emphasizes the sensitivity of this topic.
Kharisova’s position is closer to a social-democratic model with an emphasis on stable institutions and social guarantees comparable to those in Northern Europe.
“The ideal country I would like to see is something similar to the Scandinavian countries. A place where social rights are well protected, where parliamentary democracy functions, where villages have normal shops and decent roads, and people don’t leave the country – where there is a large influx of international investment and true independence,” Kharisova says.
She is also more consistent in supporting Euro-Atlantic integration, including potential NATO membership, while acknowledging that this position remains unpopular among many Belarusians.
One fundamental goal unites these young activists: the need for Belarus to exit Russia’s sphere of security and influence. However, their differences in economic models, the role of the state, and foreign policy orientation are serious enough to speak of several competing visions of the future country rather than a common program.
Kharisova is the most direct in articulating the gap between the desired and the likely. In her assessment, a post-Lukashenka Belarus is unlikely to become a stable liberal democracy or quickly undergo a “successful transition.”
“We must not forget that there are people who support Lukashenka, and they are not going anywhere. We have quite a few religious, more conservative people than me. And most likely, it will be something like Lithuania at best. At worst, a situation like in Georgia before the change of power. Something similar will be built here for the first many years,” she says.
A Political Force?
The question of whether young Belarusian emigres have become an independent political force remains open and does not have a simple answer even within this generation itself.
Shulgan emphasizes above all the change in forms of activity: more and more young Belarusians are choosing local and practical forms of organization focused on concrete tasks rather than participation in centralized structures.
These young people are “not trying to market themselves just to be talked about,” she adds.
Kharisova sees a more complex picture. On the one hand, her generation stands apart from previous ones.
“We 100% have our own interests, ambitions, views, and vision of the future. It seems to me our generation is a bit more left-leaning, a bit more liberal, and more tolerant. These Belarusians in exile have lived abroad, seen how it works in other countries, encountered other cultures, and this generally makes people more understanding,” she notes.
On the other hand, many politically active young people are still embedded in the structures created after 2020 and operate within them.
“At the same time, we still exist within the old system. Those of us engaged in politics are still inside traditional structures built by the older generation,” Kharisova adds.
In this sense, it is more accurate to speak of the formation of a potential political resource than of a fully autonomous actor with its own mechanisms of influence.
Skepticism toward the old leaders does not guarantee the ability to build new sustainable institutions. European experience and political socialization in emigration create new expectations, but do not guarantee effectiveness.
What distinguishes this generation is the combination of two experiences: participation in street politics under repression and subsequent immersion in institutional democracy in Western Europe. This is a rare combination for the post-Soviet space, but its political consequences remain uncertain.
At the end of our conversation, I asked Liza Prokopchik if she could imagine us meeting in five years’ time, in Minsk.
“Fifty-fifty,” she says after a pause. “But I choose to hold on to the half where it’s possible.”
Viktar Baranau is a Belarusian political scientist, investigative journalist, and civil society worker currently based in Poland. He specializes in Eastern European geopolitics, regional security, and open-source intelligence (OSINT) methodologies.
