Maria Zajtseva, martyr for freedom in Belarus

A medal in memory of ‘For honour and dignity’ for the young activist found dead in January in Ukraine, where she had gone to confront the Russian invasion. Her image with her bleeding face during the 2020 protests in Minsk is a symbol of Lukashenko's violent repression.

Minsk (AsiaNews) - The photograph of Maria Zajtseva with a bloodied face during the protests against the bogus re-election of Aleksandr Lukashenko in Minsk in August 2020 had travelled around the world, becoming a symbol of the violence of the police forces in Belarus.

In January 2025 the activist was found dead in Ukraine, where she had travelled to fight in the resistance against the Russian invasion. She was killed the day after her 24th birthday, and the opposition government in exile of Belarus has now awarded her the memorial medal ‘For Honour and Dignity’.

Many media outlets such as Currentime, Meduza and Deutsche Welle have recently dedicated extensive reports to her, speaking with her friends and fellow soldiers to tell the story of her heroic destiny.

During the 2020 protests Maria was only 19 years old, and was injured by fragments of stun grenades and rubber bullets. She herself later said in an interview with Radio Svoboda, while still in hospital, that ‘I have not regretted going to Minsk to protest, I just tried to do my part, and I hope that all the sacrifices we make are not in vain, what happens on the streets gives us so much strength and courage’.

After several operations in Belarus, Maria was taken to complete her recovery in the Czech Republic, thanks to the Medevac humanitarian medical programme.

Despite all the doctors' efforts, Maria remained deaf in one ear, and decided to “learn to live even without what cannot be recovered”, a great sacrifice given her love of music, as her friends tell us.

In the famous photo of the protests, she was wearing a Guns N' Roses T-shirt, and a young Slovak man who supported the Belarusian protests had given her a ticket to one of their concerts.

Remaining in the Czech Republic, Maria then began to study the language, preparing for university, and always remaining at the centre of media attention, with whom she never stopped communicating.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Zajtseva immediately made herself available to help Ukrainian refugees fleeing to the Czech Republic, but the emotional reaction was so strong that some young Belarusians who had also left the country went to the front line to support the Ukrainians.

One of these was Timur Mitskevich, who was also beaten and tortured by the police during the 2020 protests, when he was only 16 years old. He remained in a coma for some time, during which his mother died, leaving him completely alone, and as soon as he turned 18 he joined the Ukrainian army.

Looking into his eyes as he prepared his rucksack, Maria realised that she couldn't stop him, and that she wanted to go to the front too.

She thought that only by driving the Russians out of Ukraine could anything be changed in Belarus too. She had to want to return with all her heart, because she didn't feel at home in the Czech Republic, which had welcomed and protected her.

In the spring of 2023 she therefore enlisted in the battalion of Kastus Kalinovskij, made up of Belarusians within the Ukrainian army, despite all her friends begging her to stop.

Having studied veterinary medicine for a few years, Maria had some medical knowledge, so they placed her in the infirmary, where she helped and saved many people, also acting as an interpreter for the foreign soldiers. All those who knew her at the front say that even during the most terrible fighting she ‘was always very calm’, despite her young age.

Maria was wounded in the hand by a grenade and had to return to Czechoslovakia for rehabilitation, but she didn't want to live a sheltered life and asked to be trained as a sniper because ‘otherwise they'll kill them all’. She therefore returned to fight for freedom, even sacrificing her own life, because she refused to resign herself to being a victim.