A former Belarusian official who sided with the opposition vanished last year. A new investigation says FSB officers kidnapped him from a yacht in the Black Sea.

In 2020, Anatol Kotau resigned from the Belarusian presidential administration, saying he condemned the violence against participants in the protests against Alexander Lukashenko. He then moved to Poland and began working with structures of the Belarusian opposition. He was linked to what was once a popular Telegram channel called “Nick and Mike,” which published insider information about Lukashenko. In August 2025, Kotau traveled to Turkey, set out to sea on a yacht, and vanished without a trace. Neither Turkey nor Poland is investigating his disappearance. Journalists from the Belarusian Investigative Center, OCCRP, and Deutsche Welle found that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) was involved in Kotau’s disappearance. Meduza recounts their investigation.

Who is Anatol Kotau

A former Belarusian official, diplomat, and sports administrator, Kotau worked at the Belarusian embassy in Poland, the National Olympic Committee, and the Belarusian presidential administration. In 2020, at the height of the protests against Alexander Lukashenko, he left government service. He explained his decision this way: “I don’t understand how, in the 21st century, in an entirely European country, it was possible to come to the point of killing unarmed citizens, mass beatings, and torture — and then not even attempt to apologize. For me, this is beyond the pale.”

After resigning, Kotau settled in Poland, where he worked with the Belarusian Sports Solidarity Foundation and other opposition organizations, attempted to run a business, and developed anonymous Telegram channels. The best known of these was “Nick and Mike,” which at its peak had more than 100,000 subscribers. The channel mocked Lukashenko and published insider information about him. In 2022, the deputy director of the Belarusian state news agency BELTA — the equivalent of the Russian state news agency TASS — was sentenced to five years in prison for leaking information to “Nick and Mike.”

People who knew Kotau described him as ambitious, though he never rose to the leadership of the Belarusian opposition and in recent years was not a prominent figure. He remained of interest to the Belarusian regime nonetheless. Human rights activist and former Belarusian presidential candidate Ales Mikhalevich put it this way: “People like me are simply enemies of the regime, while people like him are traitors — which is far more serious.” In 2024, Kotau was sentenced in absentia to 12 years in prison and placed on wanted lists in both Belarus and Russia.

How Kotau disappeared

On August 21, 2025, Kotau flew from Poland to Turkey, boarded a yacht in the Turkish city of Trabzon, and was never seen again by his friends or family.

Investigative journalists found that the crew of the yacht — a 30-meter motor vessel called the Shells, with four cabins — did not speak Russian, had been hired for a single voyage, and was dismissed immediately afterward. Four other people were passengers on the vessel besides Kotau:

• Belarusian Yuri Puzikau, a karate coach who worked at the Belarusian sports club “Adradzhenne,” which Kotau knew well.
• Russian citizen Pyotr Grib, a former security officer originally from Belarus who served as head of security at an ice arena in Sochi and as an aide to a local deputy.
• Russian citizen Yuri Golovanov, who between 2015 and 2016 transferred money to a colleague of a man who had worked as a driver at the Belarusian National Olympic Committee under Kotau’s leadership.
• Azerbaijani Russian-speaker Kahira Eynalova, who had known Kotau since at least 2023. Eynalova said they had a romantic relationship; their correspondence also touched on Kotau’s business projects.

Puzikau left the yacht before Kotau arrived. So when the Shells departed Trabzon, the passengers remaining on board besides Kotau were Grib, Golovanov, and Eynalova.

The Shells was listed as bound for the port of Sochi, but instead headed for the partially recognized territory of Abkhazia. The Belarusian Investigative Center reports that on August 22, Grib and Golovanov instructed the crew to sail to the Abkhazian city of Ochamchire, where Russia’s Federal Security Service border service maintains a base. There, a coast guard vessel carrying FSB border officers pulled alongside the yacht. They took Kotau and ordered the yacht’s captain to remove him from the passenger list.

All other passengers remained on board. Grib and Golovanov told the crew to sail to Sukhumi, where they disembarked and then made their way to Russia. Only Eynalova returned to Trabzon.

This story raises many questions

• It is not known why Kotau traveled to Turkey and boarded the yacht. At home he said it was a work trip; at work he said it was personal.
• It is not known which of the other passengers he was acquainted with. The only confirmed acquaintance is Eynalova.
• It is not known whether Kotau was aware of where the yacht was headed. According to Eynalova, he was drunk.
• It is not known what has become of Kotau. Russian and Belarusian law enforcement agencies say they did not detain him.
• Finally, it is not known whether this was actually an abduction — or a staged one.

Eynalova says the yacht’s passengers had planned to go to Georgia to gamble at a casino, but then ”they got hammered, changed [their plans] and said: ‘No, let’s go to such-and-such place.’” According to her, Kotau had been drinking with the Russians, after which he fell asleep. Other accounts say he was sick.

The Belarusian Investigative Center notes that Golovanov and Grib summoned the coast guard on the pretext that Kotau had gotten drunk, attacked them, and beaten them. People who knew Kotau insist, however, that he was not prone to physical violence whether sober or drunk.

The yacht may have been bought by a friend of Kotau’s

Six months after Kotau’s disappearance, the Shells was sold to a company registered in the Marshall Islands that does not disclose its beneficiaries. A source in yacht brokerage circles said the previous owner sold the vessel to a friend. After the sale, the yacht was renamed YS Legacy.

The letters YS in the new name match the initials on the passport of Yuri Serykh, a former Belarusian KGB officer who once worked alongside Kotau at the Belarusian National Olympic Committee and later appeared with him at events held by the sports club “Adradzhenne.” Kotau also invited Serykh to his wedding as a friend.

Serykh owns the Belarusian company BTS Global, which manufactures drones. Yuri Puzikau — the yacht passenger who disembarked in Trabzon before Kotau arrived — previously worked there. In March 2026, BTS Global filed an application to register the trademark YS Legacy, matching the yacht’s new name.

Kotau’s disappearance is not being investigated

Turkish authorities did not respond to journalists’ questions about whether an investigation was underway. Polish authorities stated that they were not conducting one because the disappearance occurred in another country. Human rights activist Ales Mikhalevich disagrees; he believes the crime that ended in Kotau’s disappearance began in Poland.

“Not a single prosecutor, not a single government official wants extra work. If there were political will to open a criminal case into Anatol Kotau’s disappearance, it would be done quite easily,” Mikhalevich said.

Kotau’s friend Ruslan Khazin is convinced that Kotau is alive: “If they had wanted to eliminate him, it could have been done far more simply here, in Warsaw — staged as an accident. The circumstances of his disappearance… suggest that the forces into whose hands he fell needed him alive.”