Mikita Dranets | Nikita Dranets*

Arrest date: 02.03.2021
Charges:
– Participation in a criminal organization;
– organization of group actions that grossly violate the public order
Sentence: 6 years and a fine of approximately €5,600.
Place of detention: IK-3
Release date: 03.03.2026

Nikita was born on January 1, 1999 in the town of Beryoza in the Brest region.
As a child he attended drawing groups, he was in the karate section, was engaged in the section on throwing the shot.
Graduated from Brest University. He spent all his time at home reading books and drawing a lot with paints. He was looking for a job.
He loves to read fantasy, draws, is interested in cinematography – likes to watch movies of different genres, different years. Now he is trying to write a book.
He loves cooking and can bake a cake.

Views

*We are unaware of his political views, but since he is detained under the anarchists’ case, we consider it important to support him in every possible way.

The history of detention and the case

March 2, 2021 in Brest a number of activists and young people, who were probably on the list of Main Department for Combating Organized Crime as politically unreliable, were actively detained. During the week Aleksandr Kozlyanko, Andrey Marach, Pavel Shpetny, Nikita Dranets, Daniil Chul’, Aleksey Golovko were detained.
Each of the detainees were charged with gross disorderly conduct and participation in the international criminal organization Revolutionary Action.
It later became clear that the activists Akikhiro Gaevsky-Khanada, Andrey Chepyuk i Aleksandr Frantskevich, detained back in August-September 2020, and human rights activist Marfa Rabkova were also charged with the same case.
By the beginning of the trial the majority of the detained guys were charged under three-dozen articles of the Criminal Code. The grounds for the charges were the anarchists’ actions against the battery factory (blocking the Brest-Minsk highway), the participation of anarchists in the march of netizens in Brest in 2017 and graffiti. Interestingly, at one time the march of netizens was qualified as a mass event and some anarchists received an administrative arrest for it. For some reason, 4 years later, they decided to initiate a criminal case.

Sentence

On April 25, 2022 in Minsk city court the hearing of the “international criminal organization” of anarchists began. According to the investigation, the activists of the Revolutionary Action in Belarus, Revolutionary Freedom in Ukraine and People’s Self-Defense in Russia created a criminal organization to undermine the regimes.
On September 6, 2022, Judge Sergey Hripach pronounced the verdict to the 10 defendants in the case of “international criminal organization.
Nikita was sentenced to 6 years in a reinforced regime colony and a fine of approximately €5,600.

Detention conditions

During the investigation he was periodically summoned for talks by officers of the Main Department for Combating Organized Crime, persuading him to testify against other detainees in the same case. Nikita refused to have any conversations with the officers.
Nikita, like many other political prisoners, has difficulties with correspondence. Letters from relatives are somehow missed, but news from friends and acquaintances is practically never received.
During his stay in the pretrial detention center, Nikita improved his drawing. He also read a lot of books and even started to write his own book, invented and drew pictures for it.
There was a TV set in the cell and sometimes good movies was shown, which Nikita shares his impressions of in his letters to his parents. He remembers the ones he watched before his detention and compares them with his current impressions.
He makes up board games.
He does sports exercises.

Relatives

Nikita’s family is waiting for him outside – his mother, father, little brother, and grandparents.
His parents try to provide for their son and support him, although, as his mother says, “Nikita never complains or asks for anything – he’s modest”.


Write online a letter:

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    Address to support

    IK-3, g.p. Vit’ba Vitebskaya oblast’, 211322, Belarus
    Nikita Vadimovich Dranets

    📧 How do one write letters to prisoners in Belarus so that they reach them?

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