Belarusian opposition figure Angelika Melnikova is missing. Her ex-husband and children just turned up in Belarus.
Angelika Melnikova, the speaker for the exiled Belarusian opposition’s Coordination Council, has been missing since late March. Melnikova was last seen in Poland, where she, her now-ex-husband, and her two daughters made their home after fleeing Aleksandr Lukashenko’s regime. Conflicting reports suggest she may have left the E.U., possibly for London — but her phone later pinged in Belarus, where her ex-husband has surfaced with their children. Now, the Belarusian opposition is not only concerned for Melnikova’s safety but also scrambling to unfreeze funds that she managed. Here’s what we know so far about Angelika Melnikova’s disappearance.
On March 28, the Belarusian opposition’s Coordination Council reported that Angelika Melnikova, the Council’s speaker, had disappeared. According to the Council, she stopped responding to messages on March 25. The independent Belarusian news outlet Euroradio noted that colleagues hadn’t seen her in person for several weeks — she had said she was sick with COVID-19. The Belarusian newspaper Nasha Niva reported that Melnikova boarded a plane in Poland, where she lives, and left the European Union. Her two young daughters disappeared along with her, the independent Belarusian outlet Zerkalo noted.
The Coordination Council’s deputy speaker, Stanislava Hlynnik, said Melnikova had taken medical leave back in February. Hlynnik last spoke with her by phone on March 7 — on that day, Melnikova failed to attend an event she had planned to join, citing a decline in her health. On March 21, she joined a full Council call (with her camera off), and on March 24, she took part in another call on a separate topic (this time with her camera on). The next day, she stopped responding altogether.
On March 29, a spokesperson for Poland’s interior minister said Melnikova had not been in Poland “for many weeks.” Euroradio confirmed she was in Warsaw on February 20, when she visited the outlet’s studio for an interview. Later, Belarusian opposition figure Pavel Latushka stated that, according to Polish police, Melnikova left the E.U. at the end of February and was allegedly planning to travel to London. After that, her trail went cold. On March 23, her ex-husband reportedly left Poland for Belarus by bus.
Who is Angelika Melnikova?
Angelika Melnikova, 38, was born in the town of Nyasvizh, in Belarus’s Minsk region, and holds degrees in linguistics and economics. She and her ex-husband, a programmer named Andrei Melnikov, have two daughters, aged six and 12 (some sources say seven and 13).
From 2016 to 2018, Melnikova served as a deputy PR director at Coca-Cola Beverages Belarus. She left the position during her second pregnancy.
According to a profile by Nasha Niva, Melnikova had little interest in politics before 2020. But that changed when mass opposition protests swept Belarus following the contested 2020 presidential election. Outraged by police violence against demonstrators, she joined protests in both Nyasvizh and Minsk, recorded video appeals, and gave media interviews. She was fined twice for participating in the protests, for a total equivalent of $600.
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Fearing criminal prosecution, Melnikova left Belarus with her husband and children and fled to Ukraine in September 2020. “But we didn’t want [to leave],” she later said. “I didn’t want to abandon my 85-year-old grandmother or my mother.” From Ukraine, she relocated to Poland, where she obtained residency and later citizenship thanks to her Polish roots.
Since 2022, Melnikova has been working with National Anti-Crisis Management, a political initiative launched by former Belarusian culture minister Pavel Latushka, who joined the opposition during the 2020 protests.
Latushko invited Melnikova to lead his faction’s ticket in elections to the Coordination Council. In July 2024, she became the Council’s speaker. At the time, Melnikova said she hoped to develop the body as an alternative to Belarus’s official parliament, controlled by President Aleksandr Lukashenko. Melnikova also revealed that she had divorced her husband, who had stopped supporting her political work. Nonetheless, she said, they maintain “civilized relations” and continue to raise their daughters together.
‘We’re just waiting for her to turn up’
On March 31, Zerkalo reported that Andrei Melnikov had been seen in Nyasvizh with his daughters. On April 7, he confirmed to the outlet that the girls were with him but said he didn’t know Angelika’s whereabouts. “We’re divorced,” he said. “Of course I’m also worried about where she’s gone. […] We’re just waiting for her to turn up.”
Melnikova’s mother told Euroradio — which contacted her posing as one of her daughter’s colleagues — that her former son-in-law had brought the girls to her in Nyasvizh. She also said he hadn’t told her where Angelika was. “Maybe he doesn’t want to upset me or something,” she said.
At the same time, according to Euroradio, Andrei had been living with Angelika and their daughters in a rented apartment in Warsaw. On April 8, a neighbor told the outlet he hadn’t seen Angelika since March 1, and that “a few weeks ago,” a man — possibly Andrei — was seen carrying packed belongings out of her apartment.
Shortly after news of Melnikova’s disappearance broke, Nasha Niva reported that the Coordination Council had lost access to a bank account that was supposed to receive a donor tranche of about 100,000 euros. At the same time, Belsat TV noted that the Council doesn’t have a legal entity or its own bank accounts.
It later became clear that the account in question belonged to Białoruś Liberty, a foundation Melnikova founded in 2022. The foundation received grants not only for the Coordination Council, but also for the Cyber Partisans — an anonymous group of Belarusian hacktivists that emerged during the 2020 protests. Because of Melnikova’s disappearance, “several tens of thousands of dollars” in grant money for the Cyber Partisans remain frozen in the account. It’s still unclear whether the final grant for the Coordination Council was transferred before she vanished. The Council has reached out to donors to confirm whether the funds were sent.
‘None of these theories fit her profile’
As of this writing, Melnikova’s whereabouts are still unknown. Pavel Latushka has filed a missing person report with the Polish police, while Alexey Leonchik, one of the founders of the BYHelp and BYSOL aid funds for victims of repression, has filed a report with British authorities. “I want to find out whether Angelika actually arrived in the U.K.,” Leonchik told Belsat TV. “It seems very strange to me that someone flying from Poland to another country — where travel is generally easy to track — could just disappear.”
Members of the Belarusian opposition are discussing various theories about what may have happened to Melnikova, most of which involve the Belarusian security services. Some speculate that she may have been recruited, abducted, or even killed. Leonchik was among those to voice the latter possibility.
“In a few weeks, people might just forget [about the disappearance] and assume that Angelika ran off with 100,000 euros in grant money meant for the Council — which, in London, isn’t even a significant sum,” he said. “But none of these theories, including the idea that she was an agent, fit her profile at all.”
On April 2, Latushko said that the team at the National Anti-Crisis Management had geolocated Melnikova’s phone and determined that on March 19 and 25, it had been in Minsk. But on April 7, he added that Polish police do not consider it likely that Melnikova herself is in Belarus.
So far, Belarusian state propaganda has largely stayed quiet on the issue. The only exception was a Telegram post from a pro-regime channel showing what was claimed to be a photo of Melnikova signing an interrogation report. It was later confirmed the photo had actually been taken in Poland in the summer of 2024.
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