Roman is a Belarusian journalist and former editor of the Telegram channels NEXTA and Belarus of the Brain, which have been declared extremist by the authorities. In 2020, he was charged with several criminal offenses, including “organizing mass riots” and “inciting hatred.” In May 2021, he was detained after Belarusian authorities forcibly landed a Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius in Minsk.
In June of that year, he was transferred to house arrest.
The trial in the "NEXTA case" began in 2023. Roman was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment in a maximum security penal colony, but after the verdict was announced, he was not taken into custody and remained under house arrest.
He was released in May 2023 as part of a pardon.
