How a Belarusian exile vanished in waters held by Russia

At about 6 p.m. on August 21, 2025, the former Belarusian diplomat and sports official Anatol Kotau boarded a private yacht in northeastern Turkey. He said he would be home in a few days.

The yacht was officially bound for Russia — one of two countries with a warrant out for his arrest — but it is unclear whether Kotau knew its intended destination. What is known is that three hours into his journey, he stopped responding to messages.

He never returned home.

Using information from sources, documents, satellite imagery and leaked databases, DW and its partners, the Belarusian Investigative Center (BIC) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project , have determined that Kotau was taken off the yacht by the Russian Coast Guard, a division of the FSB domestic intelligence agency , likely working in cooperation with Belarus . The monthslong investigation found that Kotau may have been lured to his fate by people he knew.

Kotau was wanted in Belarus

Kotau spent much of his early political career as a diplomat at the Belarusian Embassy in neighboring Poland. In 2015, he was appointed secretary-general of the Belarusian Olympic Committee, serving under  Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko ,  Europe's longest-ruling autocrat . Kotau was also deputy director of the organizing committee for the 2019 multisport European Games in Minsk,  a prestige project for Lukashenko .

He quit his job as government forces suppressed protests after Lukashenko declared victory in the 2020 presidential election. He fled to Poland, where he registered as a refugee, and, from Warsaw, began pushing for change in Belarus.

Kotau was an outspoken critic and was widely believed by fellow dissidents to be among those behind the "Nick and Mike" Telegram channel, which exposed the regime's secrets. He was a key part of the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation, a movement for athletes that actively lobbied to have Minsk stripped of the honor of co-hosting the 2021 Ice Hockey World Championship — in part on the grounds that Lukashenko could use the global spotlight on his favorite sport to rehabilitate his image following the bloody clampdown of 2020.

"He was a person who worked for many years in the state system," said Ales Mikhalevich, a Belarusian human rights lawyer and former presidential candidate. "People like me, for example, are simply enemies for the regime, whereas people like him are traitors. And that is much more serious."

In 2024, a Belarusian court sentenced Kotau in absentia to 12 years in prison after finding him guilty of conspiracy to seize power in an unconstitutional way and promotion of extremist activities. Arrest warrants were issued by the governments of Belarus and Russia.

"Without a doubt,  this was a person the Belarusian authorities wanted to get back — legally or illegally," Mikhalevich said.

Anatol Kotau was deputy director of the organizing committee for the 2019 European Games in Minsk Image: Privat

Kotau's travel tendencies

Friends said Kotau was often secretive about his travel plans. In April 2025, he traveled to Dubai, where he held at least two meetings. DW and its partners were unable to identify everyone he met on that trip.

Kotau had another visit to Dubai scheduled for July 2025, one month before he disappeared, but canceled the trip when he developed appendicitis, according to his wife.

"He usually didn't say in advance where he was going or why," Kotau's friend and fellow opposition activist Ruslan Khazin said. "But we always knew that after he'd gone somewhere to meet someone, there would be some interesting news."

Before Kotau disappeared in August, he told his wife that he was traveling to Turkey for business; his boss at a Polish events agency believed that he was going for personal reasons.

Several people told DW and its partners that, shortly before the trip to Turkey, Kotau indicated to various people that things were about to change in Belarus and that "soon we are all going home."

"I just didn't understand," Khazin recalled. "I said: 'What do you mean?' He has this usual manner — he smiles and says: 'Well, you'll find out later.' That's it."

A fellow Belarusian

After landing in Istanbul on August 21, Kotau flew to the northeastern port city of Trabzon, where the yacht awaited. The boat itself had departed from Istanbul earlier, carrying a small crew, two Russian passengers and Yuryy P., a Belarusian karate judge and instructor with connections to the Belarusian secret service, which still goes by its Soviet initials, KGB.

Social media photos indicate that Kotau could have met Yuryy P. at the Vozrozhdenie (Renaissance) sport club, which can be linked to the KGB during its four years in existence, from 2017 to 2021, according to information provided by the Belarusian civil society group Rabochy Ruch.

Yuryy P. was also employed by a company called Tres International, which is headquartered near Dubai but has a representative office in M…