Belarus Service
Radio Svaboda overcomes significant censorship and pervasive state propaganda to deliver accurate and independent reporting to its audiences in Belarus.
Website page views
(2024)
Facebook video views
(2024)
Instagram video views
(2024)
YouTube video views
(2024)
About the Service
RFE/RL’s Belarus Service, known locally as Radio Svaboda, was established in 1954 to reach Belarusian audiences behind the Iron Curtain.
Radio Svaboda reports news from Prague and Vilnius. According to a 2024 survey conducted in Belarus, Radio Svaboda reaches 7.4% of the adult population weekly.
An investigation from the Service revealed that a Russian-owned manufacturer based in Belarus is exploiting a sanctions loophole, purchasing equipment and materials from Europe and the U.S. and then shipping finished military-grade components to Russia for use in its war on Ukraine.
Radio Svaboda was the first to uncover the emergence of a military camp in Belarus for Russian Wagner mercenaries and its subsequent dismantling.
The Service’s award-winning podcast The Belag Archipelago covers Belarus’ descent into a prison state under Alyasksandr Lukashenka’s rule.
The narrative podcast, Lukashenka’s Lackeys, is a groundbreaking six-part visualized miniseries capturing the brutal crackdown on the 2020 protests from the perspective of security forces.
Reaching Audiences
Media Climate
Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index ranks Belarus 166th of 180 countries.
In August 2020, Radio Svaboda websites were blocked. In July 2021, Radio Svaboda’s Minsk bureau was raided and sealed.
In December 2021, Radio Svaboda was designated an “extremist organization” by Belarus’ Interior Ministry, criminalizing the reporting, distribution, and consumption of RFE/RL content.
In July 2024, Yury Drakakhrust, a journalist and analyst for the Belarus Service based in Prague, was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison by Belarusian authorities on false charges.
In 2025, the Trump administration secured the releases of current and former RFE/RL journalists from unjust detention in Belarus: Andrei Kuznechyk, Ihar Karnei, and Ihar Losik.
Awards
Free Word Awards
The Belag Archipelago won first place in the Non-Fiction Genres/Video category at the Free Word Awards in Vilnius, Lithuania, in September 2025.
The documentary film The Inevitable President (1994 — the Expected Catastrophe) by veteran freelance journalist Vital Tsyhankou received first place in the Analytical Genres/Video category.
Media IQ
Radio Svaboda won the top spot among Belarusian media outlets in Media IQ’s 2024 ranking for upholding journalistic standards.
Latest Updates
RFE/RL Journalist Ihar Losik and Former Havel Fellow Alena Tsimashchuk Released from Detention in Belarus
RFE/RL journalist Ihar Losik and former Vaclav Havel Journalism Fellow Alena Tsimashchuk have been freed from unjust imprisonment in Belarus.
Journalists in Trouble: RFE/RL Journalist Placed in Solitary Confinement in Russia
Nika Novak placed in solitary confinement; Farid Mehralizada sentenced to nine years in prison; RFE/RL challenges accreditation denials in Kazakhstan; and more.
US District Court Orders USAGM to Pay RFE/RL for Rest of Fiscal Year
Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has granted Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)’s request for a preliminary injunction in its lawsuit against the…
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