We think it’s important to express our position on the situation that has unfolded around Mikola Dziadok after his release, as our group supported Mikola for a total of 10 years, and we shared with him the same movement and struggle against the dictatorship in Belarus.
Mikola is a long-time activist who has served two prison sentences for his anarchist activities. In 2017-2018, Mikola began a relationship with a 16-year-old girl, which developed from a comradely friendship into a romantic one. He was 29 at the time. The relationship ended after a few months.
It recently became known that around 2023, his former partner began writing on her Telegram channel that she considered the relationship to be abusive and violent. At first, these posts did not mention her partner’s name, but by 2025, it became clear that she was writing about Mikola. Mikola was serving his second term at the time and was released on September 11, 2025, and deported to Lithuania.
Learning about these accusations, the movement was concerned, but also understood that Mikola, having spent several years in isolation, experiencing torture and pressure, and being suddenly taken out of the country, was not in a stable psychological state to adequately reflect on the accusations. A decision was made to create a temporary transformative justice collective, which spent about two months trying to communicate with Mikola and his former partner about possible next steps. You can read the full report on the collective’s work at https://pramen.io/en/2025/12/report-of-the-working-group-for-the-transformative-process-of-mikola-dziadok/
Our ABC group knew about this initiative and supported it. Like other collectives in the movement, we decided not to make any public statements while awaiting the results of the transformative process. However, we informed other anti-repressive groups with whom we interact regularly about the accusations against Mikola and the measures the movement is taking.
Unfortunately, Mikola decided to leave the transformative process when he realized that the movement is critical of his actions towards the former partner. He told our collective that he considered such behavior to be treasonous and an endorsement of the liberal feminist agenda.
The case was also complicated by the fact that Mikola gave different people different information and assessments of his actions. Commenting on this story in a public post, he acknowledged his responsibility for the harm caused and said he was sorry that his actions had hurt his former partner. At the same time, in private conversations with friends, he denied the truthfulness of the allegations or acknowledged some of the facts but did not consider their consequences to be serious.
All in all, we counted about 13 different cases of inflicting harm described by his former partner, of which Mikola confirmed five meaning he confirmed that such events did take place. If he had been willing to reflect on at least those confirmed cases, it would have been a significant step forward in changing his behavior and views, but this did not happen.
Moreover, after leaving the process, Mikola shared his old book on intersectionality online. The book contains criticism that modern feminism promotes a cult of victimhood, collective guilt of men, and unconditional trust in victims of violence. This suggests that Mikola’s unwillingness to reflect on his actions is also rooted in his ideological rejection of feminism.
We see that Mikola does not understand and does not accept the power imbalance in the relationship between an adult man and a teenager, the power imbalance that makes such relationship more than simply “mutually toxic” as he described it. It is precisely in the lack of understanding of how power dynamics work in intimate relationships that the danger lies that these actions may be repeated.
During the 10 years that Mikola was in prison, the movement has indeed made great strides in terms of analyzing power, methods of regulation within the movement, and reflection on the culture of abolition and transformation. We can’t assume that Mikola and we are on the same level of political analysis. We also understand that Mikola is deeply traumatized by the prison system and that any mention of the word “justice” is associated only with punitive authorities.
We do not believe that everyone in the movement except Mikola behaves perfectly in comradely and romantic relationships. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone can cause harm, everyone can count on support and ask for a safe space. But this does not mean that one can refuse dialogue, reject any criticism, and close oneself off from attempts to talk about difficult topics, acknowledge problematic issues, and compensate for the harm done to the best of one’s ability.
We see that Mykola does not understand and does not accept the power imbalance in the relationship between an adult man and a teenager, which means that they cannot simply be considered “mutually toxic.” It is precisely in the lack of understanding of how power dynamics work in intimate relationships that the danger lies that these actions may be repeated.
It is not okay to say that someone is lying when they say that they were hurt by your actions. It is not okay to assume that anarchists only fight against state power, while dismissing all other power dynamics as unimportant.
It is also worth mentioning that discussing this case was not easy for the movement and for our collective. For many of us, Mikola is a valued comrade who has proven himself in many other situations.
Our ABC collective has reached a consensus that we consider the relationship between an adult man and a teenage girl to be problematic, and that its consequences, as described by the former partner (and partially confirmed by Mikola), are very dangerous, especially if they are not deeply reflected upon.
We were unable to reach a consensus on the issue of our further interaction with Mikola. Most of the group was in favor of suspending interaction until the transformative process with Mikola is resumed in some form. One person felt that this was too strong a measure and amounted to a cancellation, and that it would be sufficient to publicly condemn Mikola’s actions and notify other women that he has a history of violent behavior/harmful conduct in relationships for which he does not take responsibility.
Since the majority of the group was against interacting with Mikola, we decided to stop any cooperation with him by majority vote. The decision to change the consensus to a vote in this case was approved by everyone in the group.
We have decided not to sell Mikola’s books in our distro, not to collaborate with him in the media, and not to share his comments about his prison experience on our website and social networks.
It is important to note that we have fulfilled all our obligations to Mikola in terms of supporting him as a prisoner: all donations sent in his name have been transferred to him in full, as the funds that we typically give to every anarchist or antifascist prisoner after their release. We are also passed him his books stored in our warehouse free of charge.
We remain open to further cooperation if Mikola changes his position and is willing to engage in a transformative process.