Dmitri Valeriyevich Pavlichenko (, ; alternative spellings: ''Dmitry, Dzmitry, Dzmitri, Vasilyevich, Pavliuchenko, Pawliuchenka''; born 1966 in

Vitebsk Vitebsk or Vitsyebsk (, ; , ; ) is a city in northern Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Vitebsk Region and Vitebsk District, though it is administratively separated from the district. As of 2025, it has 358,927 inhabitants, m ...

) is head of the

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

ian Special Rapid Reaction Unit (

SOBR The Special Rapid Response Unit or SOBR (), from 2002 to 2011 known as OMSN (''Otryad Militsii Spetsial'nogo Naznacheniya'', Special Police Unit), is a spetsnaz unit of the National Guard of Russia (Rosgvardiya).With their military equipmen ...

Allegations of assassinations

In February 2004, Christos Pourgourides of the

Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; , CdE) is an international organisation with the goal of upholding human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. Founded in 1949, it is Europe's oldest intergovernmental organisation, represe ...

's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights reported concerns suggesting that Dmitri Pavlichenko, along with other "senior officials of the State" had been involved in the assassination of several people, including senior politicians. He stated that the Chief of the Criminal Police of Belarus, General Lapatik, in a handwritten note on November 21, 2000, accused Dmitri Pavlichenko of assassinating Jury Zacharanka, a former Minister of the Interior who disappeared on May 7, 1999, with a PB pistol, normally used for carrying out the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

at SIZO-1 prison, officially signed out from SIZO-1 on the orders of the Minister of the Interior, Sivakov. He also stated suspicions that Pavlichenko was involved in the disappearances of Victor Gonchar, Vice-President of the Parliament of Belarus and businessman Anatoly Krasovski on September 16, 1999. Pavlichenko was arrested on November 22, 2000. According to Pourgourides' report, the warrant stated (translation) While the warrant stated that the detention would be for 30 days, Pavlichenko was released a few days later, either on November 23 (according to Prosecutor General Viktor Sheyman, who became Prosecutor General on November 27) or on November 27 (according to Colonel , head of SIZO-1 at the time, who was later granted political asylum in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

). Pourgourides states that the Zakharenko family's lawyer, Volchek, stated that President

Alexander Lukashenko Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko (also transliterated as Alyaksandr Ryhoravich Lukashenka; born 30 August 1954) is a Belarusian politician who has been the first and only president of Belarus since the office's establishment in 1994, making hi ...

had personally ordered Pavlichenko's release from prison. The Head of KGB (Mackiewicz) and other top Belarusian officials were fired for the arrest. He also states that the Minister of Agriculture, Leonov, had personally told him that Lukashenko had "violently criticised the KGB for arresting Pavlichenko" on television. Lukashenko also immediately (in November 2000) fired the Head of KGB and some other top Belarusian officials for the arrest of Pavlichenko and attempts to investigate the murders. The Governing Council of the

Inter-Parliamentary Union The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU; , UIP) is an international organization of national parliaments. Its primary purpose is to promote democratic governance, accountability, and cooperation among its members; other initiatives include advancing g ...

has expressed its concern about these allegations. Pavlichenko is now subject to international sanctions of the

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, the

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, the

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and Canada among with several other Belarusian senior officials and politicians. In December 2019,

Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave"), commonly shortened to DW (), is a German state-funded television network, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the Federal Government of Germany. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite tele ...

published a documentary film in which Yury Garavski, a former member of a special unit of the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs, confirmed that it was his unit which had arrested, taken away Yury Zacharanka, Viktar Hanchar and Anatol Krassouski and that it was Pavlichenko who by hand shot them dead. In August 2020, he was identified as the commander of an

OMON OMON is a system of military special police units within the Armed Forces of Russia. It previously operated within the structures of the Soviet and Russian Ministries of Internal Affairs (MVD). Originating as the special forces unit of the So ...

detachment during the 2020 Belarusian protests.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pavlichenko, Dmitri 1966 births Living people People from Vitebsk Enforced disappearances in Belarus Belarusian individuals subject to U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctions Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List