Belarus Service
Radio Svaboda overcomes significant censorship and pervasive disinformation to provide audiences in Belarus with accurate and independent reporting.
Website page views
(2024)
Facebook video views
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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 to Belarusians living in a closed society.
According to a 2024 survey conducted in Belarus, Radio Svaboda is reaching 7.4% of the adult population weekly.
The Service’s podcast The Belag Archipelago covers Belarus’ descent into a prison state under Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s rule and its journalists frequently highlight the plight of political prisoners in Belarus.
The Service’s 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.
Radio Svaboda was the first to uncover the emergence of a military camp in Belarus for Russian Wagner mercenaries and its subsequent dismantling.
Reaching Audiences
Media Climate
Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index ranks Belarus 167th of 180 countries.
Radio Svaboda journalists Ihar Losik and Andrey Kuznechyk are unjustly imprisoned on fabricated charges by Lukashenka’s regime, which seeks to silence independent journalism.
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.
Latest Updates
RFE/RL Sues USAGM to Block Termination of Federal Grant
The grant cancellation would violate the Constitution and federal laws, according to the case filed by RFE/RL in the US District Court for DC
RFE/RL President: Defunding Would be “Massive Gift to America’s Enemies”
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) was informed today by the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) that its federal grant agreement, which funds RFE/RL’s global operations, has been terminated.
Marc Thiessen and Ilan Berman Join RFE/RL Board of Directors
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is pleased to announce that Marc Thiessen and Ilan Berman have been appointed to serve as members of the Board of Directors.
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