The essence of the charges brought against Yevgeny Stepanov, who is now accused of "creating or participating in the activities of an extremist group," is unknown. According to unreliable information, he was detained in January of this year for "distributing extremist materials on the Internet" and sentenced to arrest under Part 2 of Article 19.11 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, from which he has not been released.
Evgeniy Stepanov has serious health problems: in 2020, he suffered a stroke, after which he had difficulty speaking. Because of this, Evgeniy Stepanov lost the opportunity to work in his profession - he graduated from the University of Culture and Arts with a degree in directing, conducted weddings, concerts, and other festive and entertainment events.
Yevgeny Stepanov disappeared from social networks at the end of 2022, but due to the difficulty of communicating with him, this went unnoticed. The attention of the security forces was attracted by his appeals to government agencies, written in late February-early March 2022. He demanded to help stop Russian military aggression on the territory of Ukraine - to announce the formation of an anti-war movement and support any forms of anti-war protests; demand the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of Belarus, to consider as war criminals all those who made the decision on military action in Ukraine and who sanctioned aggressive propaganda justifying the war in the state Belarusian media.
Yevgeny Stepanov sent his demands to end the war in Ukraine to both local authorities and high-ranking government officials – the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Belarus, the head of the country's armed forces, and the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Belarus.
