TUT.BY CEO Lyudmila Chekina Is Free

• 16.09.2026, 13:44

She was detained on May 18, 2021.

Among the political prisoners released on September 16 following the arrival of a U.S. delegation in Minsk was Lyudmila Chekina , CEO of TUT.BY .

Lyudmila Chekina was detained on May 18, 2021, as part of a criminal case brought against TUT.BY for tax evasion on an exceptionally large scale (Part 2 of Article 243 of the Criminal Code). She was charged under three articles of the Criminal Code: Article 243, Part 2 (evasion of taxes and fees on an exceptionally large scale); Article 16, Part 4, and Article 130, Part 3 (organizing intentional actions aimed at inciting racial, national, religious, or other social hostility or discord based on racial, national, religious, linguistic, or other social affiliation, committed by a group of persons or resulting in serious consequences); Part 4 of Article 16, Part 3 of Article 361 (inciting actions aimed at harming the national security of the Republic of Belarus, committed through the use of the mass media or the global computer network, the Internet).

On January 9, 2023, a trial began at the Minsk City Court, which was held behind closed doors. On March 17, 2023, Judge Valentina Zenkevich sentenced the portal’s editor-in-chief, Marina Zolotova, and CEO Lyudmila Chekina to 12 years each of imprisonment in a general-regime penal colony. Lyudmila was also fined 1,000 base units (37,000 rubles).

On August 8, 2023, the political prisoner was transferred from Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 to Penitentiary Institution No. 4.