OPEN LETTER
To
His Excellency Gitanas Nausėda
President of the Republic of Lithuania
Your Excellency,
We respectfully call upon you to initiate the creation of an independent international commission to investigate the use of international financial assistance allocated for Belarus through Lithuanian legal entities, foundations, media projects, and political structures since 2020.
According to public statements by the European Commission, the European Union allocated approximately EUR 200 million to support Belarusian democratic initiatives, civil society, political prisoners, independent media, and human rights projects. The United States additionally allocated approximately USD 180 million for similar purposes. Lithuania became one of the principal centers for administering and distributing this funding.
However, after several years, Belarusian society increasingly asks a simple question:
Where did this money go, who controlled it, and what were the real results?
The situation inside Belarus has not improved. Repression became stronger. Thousands of people were arrested. Independent media inside the country were destroyed. Belarus became increasingly involved in war. Many Belarusians lost their homes, jobs, property, health, and families.
At the same time, around the Belarusian issue an entire financial and political infrastructure emerged abroad, operating in the name of democracy, human rights, and support for the Belarusian people, but with no public accountability.
Recent scandals and public revelations created serious concerns regarding possible misuse of international assistance funds.
In particular, a former speaker of the so-called Coordination Council was involved in the embezzlement of around EUR 180,000 in European assistance funds and later fled to Minsk, where real estate was purchased. These allegations caused major public outrage in Belarus-related assistance structures.
At the very same time when former political prisoners were trying to rebuild their lives after torture and imprisonment, when families of detainees were collecting money for lawyers and medicine, and when single mothers who escaped repression in Belarus were struggling to feed their minor children abroad, certain individuals connected with Belarus-related structures in Lithuania appeared to be prospering from the very system created in the name of helping those victims.
Against this background, recent public discussions concerning Belarus-related projects in Lithuania, including reports regarding approximately EUR 200,000 connected with activities involving former Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Lithuania Dainius Žalimas, raise serious questions regarding transparency, accountability, and the use of international assistance funds. The purposes, effectiveness, and practical results of these expenditures remain insufficiently explained to society and therefore require independent clarification and verification.
Society has the full moral and legal right to ask how international aid intended to support the Belarusian people was distributed, who benefited from it, what concrete results were achieved, and whether the use of these funds corresponded to the humanitarian purposes publicly declared by the organizations involved.
Many Belarusians sincerely believed that Lithuanian political figures were helping Belarus on the basis of solidarity, democratic values, and moral responsibility toward people suffering from repression. Increasingly, however, serious concerns have emerged that parts of this system may have evolved into a closed network of grants, salaries, consulting arrangements, political influence, and publicly funded activities with no transparency and insufficient accountability.
This situation is extremely damaging not only financially, but politically and morally. It undermines public trust in democratic institutions, discredits the idea of international solidarity, and creates growing disappointment among Belarusians who expected genuine support during one of the darkest periods in their country’s modern history.
Particular attention should be paid to projects connected with the collection, storage, and processing of personal data of Belarusian citizens. Following the compromise or exposure of initiatives such as “Victory Plan,” “Hajun,” and “Black Book of Belarus,” hundreds of Belarusian citizens were subjected to persecution, arrests, interrogations, searches, and imprisonment by the Belarusian security services.
It is also necessary to determine who supported these projects, who supervised them, what obligations existed regarding the protection of sensitive personal information, whether European and Lithuanian legal standards concerning personal data and human rights were respected, and whether adequate accountability mechanisms were in place in the event that such information fell into the hands of authoritarian security structures.
As a result, many Belarusians increasingly began to associate democracy not with justice, openness, solidarity, and respect for human dignity, but with closed financial structures, political favoritism, privileged groups living on international grants, lack of accountability, and the inability of society to receive honest answers regarding the use of funds allocated in the name of helping the Belarusian people.
The absence of sufficient transparency, independent oversight, and public accountability regarding the activities of certain Lithuania-based organizations connected with Belarus-related initiatives is now seriously damaging trust not only toward Lithuanian and European institutions, but toward democratic principles themselves. This is particularly dangerous because authoritarian regimes actively use such situations to convince society that corruption, hypocrisy, and abuse of power exist everywhere equally, thereby undermining faith in democracy itself.
We are asking for an independent international review of how hundreds of millions of euros and dollars allocated in the name of the Belarusian people were actually used through Lithuanian based organizations. Such a review fully corresponds to European and Lithuanian legal principles such as:
- Article 317 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union requires EU funds to be managed according to the principles of sound financial management, transparency, and accountability.
- Article 325 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union requires the protection of EU financial interests and measures against fraud, corruption, and irregularities involving European funds.
- Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046 establishes rules on transparency, accountability, effective financial control, and prevention of conflicts of interest in the use of EU resources, including under Article 61.
- The Law on Public Administration of the Republic of Lithuania establishes principles of transparency, legality, objectivity, responsibility, and accountability in matters affecting the public interest.
In order to remove suspicions regarding possible misuse of resources, conflicts of interest, lack of oversight, and ineffective use of international assistance allocated in the name of the Belarusian people we respectfully request:
- The creation of an independent international commission involving Lithuanian institutions, EU representatives, international auditors, media organizations, independent experts, and representatives of Belarusian democratic society without political discrimination.
- A comprehensive audit of financial assistance allocated through Lithuania-based Belarus-related structures and organizations since 2020.
- Publication of the commission’s findings, including information regarding grants, salaries, consulting payments, administrative expenditures, subcontractors, and project effectiveness.
- Assessment of possible conflicts of interest, failures of oversight, misuse of funds, and risks created for Belarusian citizens through projects involving sensitive personal data.
We respectfully request clarification regarding the possible connection between the purchase of a 313-square-meter villa in Greece, declared at a value of EUR 800,000, by the family of high-ranking state official and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Gabrielius Landsbergis, and his activities in supervising organizations and foundations established to provide financial support for Belarus. At a time when the homes of many Belarusian citizens were being looted and their property confiscated, while thousands of people suffered from repression and were forced to flee the country, certain individuals may have derived personal benefit against the backdrop of human suffering and tragedy.
The Belarusian people deserve honest answers. European taxpayers deserve honest answers. Lithuania itself deserves honest answers.
Transparency is not an attack on democracy. Transparency is what separates democracy from imitation.
Respectfully yours,
Dr. Valery Tsepkalo
Former Ambassador to the United States, Founder and CEO of the Belarus Hi-Tech Park, Presidential Candidate 2020
Chairman of the Board, Belarus Democratic Forum
Dmitry Bolkunets
Secretary General, Belarus Democratic Forum