January 13, Pozirk. Alaksandar Łukašenka’s administration has devised a plan to restrict access to WhatsApp, YouTube and Instagram by the end of 2025, the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine (FISU) reported.
It said that the Belarusian authorities have been testing tools to block access to popular applications in the run-up to this month’s presidential election.
The report comes days after Belarusian authorities restricted access to the internet for several hours.
FISU noted that the government is pro-actively preparing to shut down social networks during the election to prevent the mobilization of Belarusians through the internet.
The FISU recalled that at a meeting with students in November 2024, Łukašenka said he would completely shut down the internet if faced with new mass protests.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, Łukašenka’s operational and analytical center has already acquired technologies from Russia and China for filtering internet traffic and block VPN services.
Blocking popular social media is another step toward unifying the Belarusian and Russian information space and strengthening the authoritarianism, the FISU said.
Early on January 10, YouTube, TikTok, Telegram, Twitch, Discord and other application were not accessible in Belarus without a VPN.
Belarus also slowed down the internet speed during Śviatłana Cichanoŭskaja’s New Year’s video address.
Meeting with students at the Minsk State Linguistic University on November 22, Alaksandar Łukašenka admitted his direct involvement in blocking the internet in August 2020, which he had publicly denied then.
“I will tell you frankly that I authorized it [internet shutdown] in almost all cases,” he said. “When you have two problems, you start balancing them against each other. On one side of the scale was the country. If we didn’t retain the country then . . . “
Also read: Belarus slows down internet during opposition leader’s New Year’s address
