The Fate of Maria Uspenskaya: Five Years After the Yakubovsky Street Tragedy
- 28, 2021, that left IT specialist Andrei Zeltsar and KGB officer Dmitry Fedosyuk dead, the fate of Zeltsar's widow, Maria Uspenskaya, remains largely unknown to her family and...
- More than half a decade after the fatal shootout, Uspenskaya's brother, Maxim Yurchenko, reports that he has no news regarding her physical condition or whether she is permitted...
- Yurchenko believes that security forces targeted the Yakubovsky Street apartment because of him.
Five years after an apartment raid in Minsk on Sept. 28, 2021, that left IT specialist Andrei Zeltsar and KGB officer Dmitry Fedosyuk dead, the fate of Zeltsar’s widow, Maria Uspenskaya, remains largely unknown to her family and human rights advocates. According to reporting by Deutsche Welle and Zerkalo.io, Uspenskaya was inside the apartment during the raid, was subsequently charged with complicity in murder, declared mentally unfit, and sent away for compulsory psychiatric treatment.
Uncertain Fate and Isolation After the Minsk Raid
More than half a decade after the fatal shootout, Uspenskaya’s brother, Maxim Yurchenko, reports that he has no news regarding her physical condition or whether she is permitted to see relatives, noting in an interview with Deutsche Welle that he simply hopes she is alive. Yurchenko maintains that he does not have contact with the family. Belarusian human rights advocates share this lack of precise information. Pavel Sapelka, a lawyer with the Viasna human rights center, stated to Deutsche Welle that while Uspenskaya was placed in a healthcare facility for mandatory treatment, the exact legal wording of the decision remains unknown.
Sapelka added that unverified accounts indicate Uspenskaya was seen inside a pre-trial detention center even while undergoing treatment, suggesting her difficulties persisted. Our respondents were unanimous in the fact that Maria experienced severe additional suffering compared to other people who, like her, were arbitrarily placed in custody,
Sapelka told Deutsche Weller, as reported by Zerkalo.io. Yurchenko believes authorities intentionally sought to isolate his sister completely, declaring her mentally unfit so that no one would believe her accounts in the future.
Connections to the Investigation and the Raid on Yakubovsky Street
Yurchenko believes that security forces targeted the Yakubovsky Street apartment because of him. Days before the raid, he published a video on Instagram showing an action by the partisan group Charny Busel regarding a drone attack on an OMON base in Uruchcha. They thought I had something to do with this operation,
Yurchenko told Deutsche Welle. Although registered at the apartment, he had lived outside Belarus for years and only visited occasionally, with his last visit occurring in the spring of 2020. State television channels broadcasted footage of the raid immediately following the incident, showing Zeltsar opening fire with a hunting rifle as authorities breached the door, though independent experts and journalists subsequently pointed out various contradictions within the official recording.
