Nexta, or Someone. History of an opposition title from Belarus

source: Nexta.tv

On July 27, 1998, in Minsk, Aliaksandr Putsila, a Belarusian sports journalist with Belsat TV, welcomed his son Stsiapan into the world. He had no idea that his newborn child would one day achieve global success.

Young Putsila, surrounded by media circles from an early age, enrolled in the elite Belarusian Humanities Lyceum after finishing elementary school. It was a unique school focused on promoting Belarusian culture, language and the humanities. It was one of the few schools in the country where classes were taught in Belarusian. When in 2003 the administration refused to introduce Russian as a language of instruction, the school was shut down... but the lyceum went underground. It became a private institution, and classes were held not only in Minsk but also in Poland, France and Lithuania.

In 2011, in that very school, the future blogger began a four-year course of study. There he shot his first music videos, published the newspaper Трыкутнік (Triangle) and created music. That last passion resulted in the band Nexta (Someone). Stsiapan Putsila graduated in 2015 and a year later became a student at the University of Silesia in Katowice. First at the Faculty of Polish Language and Culture, then in Film and TV Production Organization.


In the meantime, he appeared on YouTube, where with three friends, on October 4, 2015, he launched the channel NEXTA. He was 17.

Mysterious someone

Nexta means someone in Belarusian, and from English, next. The author explains the name like this: A mysterious image, someone who thinks like me. Initially the channel was planned as a music project, though positioned against the politics of Alyaksandr Lukashenka`s government. The first post was a song Выбора нет (No choice), a cover of “No Exit” by Russian band Splin, calling for a boycott of the presidential election. Such a “misstep” did not go unnoticed by the Belarusian KGB. The seventeen-year-old landed in the authorities’ crosshairs.

The young Nexta band quickly gained popularity, especially among their peers. The channel shifted from music to news, though it still had entertainment. Politics captured the attention of the young creators. As Putsila says: If you are not interested in politics, tomorrow politics will be interested in you and you won’t know what to do with it.

To encourage people to stay informed without overdoing it, for the first two years, news was posted weekly. Corruption, theft, and drunk driving were just some of the topics covered by the young bloggers and journalists.

In 2017 the band split up as the team finished school and dispersed across the country. Putsila, however, while studying in Katowice, continued his online work as Stsiapan Nexta. The situation in Belarus also changed. The country was swept by protests called parasitic. They opposed decree no. 3: On preventing social dependency. Belarusians demanded:

• an end to the decline of real income,
• a stop to robbing pensioners,
• the reversal of the retirement age increase,
• a halt to rising utility bills,
• a return to free and fair elections.

Putsila reported on these protests in weekly news videos and started the campaign: Collecting garbage in Lukashenka’s Belarus. In autumn 2017 he released the video Их ждет смертная казнь (They are sentenced to death), about another death sentence in Belarus. The video got 5.5 million views and brought more followers to Nexta.

First criminal case and the launch of Nexta Live

After the release of the videos Лукашенко наглый?? (Is Lukashenka arrogant) and ЛукаШЕРЛОК и беспредел (LukaSherlock and lawlessness), in February 2018 a criminal case was opened against the young creator and his channel for insulting the president (Article 368 of the Belarusian Criminal Code). Since then, the blogger has not returned to Belarus and the channel had more than 100,000 subscribers.

Without stopping his online activity, on July 3, 2017, Putsila started working at Белсат TV (Belsat), where from autumn 2018 he hosted the program Суб’ектыў (Subjectively). Over time, to avoid being too closely associated with his father, he adopted the pseudonym Stsiapan Svetlov. He was 19 years old.

At the same time, encouraged by friends, Putsila launched the channel Nexta Live on the Russian-language platform Telegram. On the first day, 2,000 subscribers moved there from YouTube. The news providers were Belarusians themselves (anonymously). Putsila collected the submitted information, verified it (photos or two sources), and published it. Official media soon began using the channel, and the regime declared war on him.


Meanwhile, a fourth journalist joined the three-person Nexta team (the other two names remained secret for safety reasons) - Raman Pratasevich, who had already become a freedom fighter for Belarus in his teenage years.

Since Nexta was being censored and its team was wanted by the KGB, Putsila and his colleagues operated from Poland. When Pratasevich crossed the Polish-Belarusian border, Nexta, which had already been a very active channel, became even more aggressive toward the regime of Alyaksandr Lukashenka. The film Лукашэнка. Крымінальныя матэрыялы (Lukashenka. Criminal materials) sparked massive public outrage. The trailer of the film, which ultimately reached 3 million viewers, read:

Crooked secret paths that led a little-known state farm director to power, numerous crimes, political assassinations, and even a secret psychiatric diagnosis - you will learn all about this in the film. Most importantly, you will understand why Belarus is stuck in time and suffering from poverty for 25 years, while all its neighbors move forward and grow.

Arrests and... awards

Nexta became a channel of Belarusian truth. As a result of the film’s release, journalist Uladzimir Chudziantsou, who had collaborated with the channel, was arrested and sentenced to 5.5 years in prison. The main charge was drug smuggling - a blatant lie and provocation. Nexta released a video supporting the journalist.

For his work, Stsiapan Putsila received the Viktor Ivashkevich National Human Rights Award in March 2019, presented by Хартыя’97 (Charter’97) - a Belarusian civil initiative advocating for human rights and the unification of opposition political forces against the rule of Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

In May of that same year, Nexta was the first to report the death of a young 22-year-old police inspector whose body was found in a forest near Mahilyow. The officer was without pants, handcuffed, and his weapon and documents lay next to him. The mysterious death was widely covered in national media. Nexta shared photos from the crime scene and private recordings of police conversations. The material likely leaked from law enforcement itself, as Putsila had sources there - something he openly admitted. The government circles were in turmoil, but could do nothing - Nexta was out of reach.

Since 2020, the Nexta editorial team has operated a third channel - LUXTA (Nonsense), where they post images, informal commentary and general satire.

Rigged elections. Nexta on the front lines of protests

Although young people from Belarus, Lithuania and Poland already knew what Nexta was and what it stood for, after the (clearly rigged) elections in 2020 the whole world found out. The names of Putsila and Pratasevich, who was editor-in-chief of Nexta Live, appeared on the front pages of major newspapers.

On August 9, 2020, Belarus held another presidential election. The government-imposed election silence extended to the internet, which remained shut down even after election day. No one knew how long this would last if not for Nexta. On August 12, through Telegram, Putsila and Pratasevich informed their followers about what was happening in the streets of Minsk.

Protests erupted just hours after Lukashenka’s victory. Demonstrators were beaten by police, a police van rammed into a crowd, and Molotov cocktails were used. These scenes quickly reached international news outlets, and Nexta took on the role of coordinating the protests. They published:

• calls for help
• maps showing where the police were located
• locations of upcoming rallies
• addresses of protesters in hiding who needed help
• contacts for lawyers and human rights defenders
• detailed tips on how to move around the city
• ways to bypass the internet blockade using proxy servers and other tools

Considering the journalists were in Warsaw and the riots in Minsk, it was a massive effort. The editors received 200 messages per minute. Both Belarusians, knowing the capital’s streets well, could guide their compatriots from afar - and they did. After this operation, they were added to the terrorist list, accused of organizing riots, and the channel and its logo were declared extremist materials.


Still, internet users recognized Nexta’s work. In October 2020, the number of subscribers across all three channels surpassed 2 million, and the information they provided was considered credible by many news agencies under their own branding.

Extradition? No way

Such a flood of information and only four bloggers sometimes leads to mistakes. That was the case on August 11, 2020, with a report claiming Russian special forces were involved in dispersing protesters. Emotions took over and the footage wasn’t properly verified. As a BBC journalist pointed out: the attackers in the video spoke with a clear Belarusian accent, and the supposed Russian markings turned out to be something else entirely.

The video was checked and withdrawn. To avoid such mistakes in the future, more journalists were hired in September and news was divided into thematic sections.

On November 16, 2020, the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a request to the Polish Ministry of Justice and the Prosecutor General for the extradition of Putsila and Pratasevich. The Polish side refused, stating: You cannot hand someone over to a justice system that does not exist.

Despite pressure from the Belarusian government, attacks by Russian trolls, and criticism from some Belarusian opposition figures, Nexta and its journalists published more than 1,000 different news items daily. The channel was and still is funded exclusively by advertising. As the largest Belarusian news channel and one of the largest on Telegram, ad space was expensive, and revenue covered all ongoing needs.

Pratasevich did not get asylum in Poland

In September 2020, Raman Pratasevich left the editorial team. He moved to Vilnius to join activist Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Lukashenka’s main opponent in the last election. The reason? He did not receive asylum in Poland.

On May 23, 2021, a flight from Athens to Vilnius carrying Pratasevich was forced to land in Minsk by a Belarusian MIG-29 fighter jet. The KGB was waiting for him there and arrested him. After five hours, the plane continued on to Vilnius. This incident echoed across global media. Despite protests, the journalist, who was likely tortured, remains in the hands of the Belarusian KGB.

The new editor-in-chief of Nexta Live became Tadeusz Giczan, a 28-year-old London correspondent for the channel and a PhD student at University College London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies.

After Pratasevich’s departure, Nexta changed its format. It moved away from blogging and protest coverage to become - as Putsila said - more professional media. A proper newsroom was created, modern media developed, news was published, investigations launched, and sources more credible than anonymous tips were used.

But there was another side to the coin: fear of Lukashenka’s revenge. This applied to subscribers. While numbers rose during the Minsk riots, they dropped significantly just two months later. Some feared repression, others were just thrill seekers. The fearful group was larger. Around 500,000 people unsubscribed from Nexta Live, but YouTube gained 100,000 new subscribers. Advertising income also fell.

In October 2021, the channel was once again labeled an extremist outlet, and a warrant was issued for its owner. Advertisers, under threat of imprisonment, backed out fearing Lukashenka’s regime. Only Telegram remained. But Putsila had been a forward-thinking young man, saving for a rainy day when things were good. Now, Nexta on YouTube supports the other channels, with donations helping fund all three.


In 2020, Nexta and its founder were honored three times by various organizations:

• The “Profession - Journalist” award for the whole team, initiated by Open Russia
• The European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought (as one of the recognized representatives of the democratic opposition in Belarus)
• Putsila was among the top five nominees for the Grand Press award

A year later, Forbes magazine released a list of the 30 most promising Russians under 30 in the New Media category, and Putsila made the list, even though he is Belarusian.

The last opposition news source

On March 8, 2021, Nexta released a YouTube film titled Лукашенко. Золотое дно (Lukashenka. Goldmine), accusing the Belarusian leader of embezzling EU funds. The film was watched by 4 million people in Belarus alone. Considering the country’s population is 9.5 million, it was a record-breaking viewership, and Brussels began considering a demand for repayment. The goal was achieved.

On May 18, 2021, under the accusation of spreading false information, the independent Belarusian portal Tut.by was shut down and its journalists arrested. Nexta remained as the only opposition source in the country’s media landscape.

Putsila and his channels dominated the internet. Photos, video footage, and his commentary were shared not only by Belarusians and Poles but by users worldwide. Foreign media often cited the Belarusian channel, which had access to reports and information unavailable anywhere else.

By February 2022, the total number of subscribers had reached 616,000, while the overall audience exceeded 2 million. The English version of the channel on Twitter, Twitter NEXTA, is very popular, and the official website is nexta.tv.

According to the Ukrainian news agency UNN (Ukrainian National News), on January 31, 2022, based on materials collected by Nexta, Alyaksandr Lukashenka was sued before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The formal accusation was submitted by Polish lawyer Tomasz Wiliński: I accuse citizen Alyaksandr Lukashenka and his associates (Tertel, Karpenkov and others) of genocide and crimes against humanity. The complaint was filed with the support of Human Rights Organizations, the People`s Anti-Crisis Management, and a significant portion of Belarusian citizens, represented by opposition leader Pavel Latushko.

Interest in the channel surged even more after February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Daily updates on the brutal and illegal actions of Russian troops reach audiences via:

• Telegram - https://t.me/nexta_tv
• YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/nexta_tv
• Vkontakte - https://www.vk.com/nexta_tv
• Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/nexta_tv
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/nexta_tv
• Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/nexta.tv/

Today, Nexta appears even more frequently in global media. It reports not only on Lukashenka’s and Putin’s actions, but also stands with Ukraine’s defenders.


It gains subscribers and views daily, remaining the biggest reliable source of information - all thanks to one man, Stsiapan Putsila. Today the journalist is 24 years old. He has been granted political asylum in Poland and still lives in Warsaw. He promotes his channel as: Nexta. News, analysis and confidential information about Belarus.

After seven years of activity, he says this about his project:

I have journalistic experience, but Nexta is not a classic journalistic project. It is a modern media project using the latest communication technologies and not bound by traditional journalism standards.

Nexta timeline:

• 2015, October 4 - Nexta channel premieres on YouTube.
• 2017 - the Nexta team breaks up. The channel is run solo by its owner as Stsiapan Nexta.
• 2017 - premiere of the film Их ждет смертная казнь (They are sentenced to death)
• 2017, autumn - release of the films Лукашенко наглый?? (Is Lukashenka arrogant) and ЛукаШЕРЛОК и беспредел (LukaSherlock and lawlessness). A new four-person editorial team is formed
• 2018, February - criminal proceedings launched against Stsiapan Putsila
• 2018, autumn - Putsila hosts the youth program Суб’ектыў (Subjectively) on Belsat TV. Close cooperation between the TV station and Nexta
• 2018 - launch of Nexta Live on Telegram
• 2019 - Roman Pratasevich joins the editorial team
• 2019, October - premiere of the documentary Лукашэнка. Крымінальныя матэрыялы (Lukashenka. Criminal materials)
• 2020 - launch of the third channel, the satirical Luxta
• 2020, August - Nexta coordinates the Minsk riots following the presidential election
• 2020, October - Nexta and its logo are declared extremist materials
• 2020, October - Putsila and Pratasevich are labeled as terrorists
• 2020, November 16 - Belarus demands the extradition of Putsila and Pratasevich
• 2020, autumn - Nexta channels shift to a new broadcasting format
• 2021, March 8 - premiere of the film Лукашенко. Золотое дно (Lukashenka. Goldmine)
• 2021, May 23 - arrest of Raman Pratasevich
• 2021, October - Nexta is listed as an extremist organization

Sources:

• https://naviny.belsat.eu/news/kolasauskamu-litseyu-29-bloger-nexta-dy-inЛукашенко. Золотое дноshyya-vypuskniki-pra-svayu-alma-matar/
• https://esquire.ru/articles/199063-nexta-live-samyy-populyarnyy-telegram-kanal-o-protestah-v-belarusi-kotoryy-chitayut-bolee-milliona-chelovek-otkuda-on-vzyalsya-i-kto-ego-delaet/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexta
• https://natemat.pl/317413,kim-jest-nexta-stsiapan-putsila-to-jeden-z-czolowych-bialoruskich-blogerow
• https://be-tarask.wikipedia.org/wiki/Сьцяпан_Пуціла
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2MVtdQ3OBQ
• https://www.forbes.ru/tehnologii/407119-kak-chetyre-cheloveka-sozdali-glavnyy-telegram-kanal-belorusskogo-protesta-s
• https://charter97.org/en/news/2019/4/11/330123/
• https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2021-05/belarus-roman-protasewitsch-ryanair-flug-alexander-lukaschenko
• https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-53752745
• https://www.delfi.lt/ru/news/live/eksklyuzivnoe-intervyu-s-osnovatelem-nexta-my-golos-revolyucii-v-belarusi-no-stali-im-ponevole.d?id=85010753
• https://natemat.pl/394091,zalozyciel-opozycyjnego-portalu-nexty-nie-zostanie-poddany-ekstradycji
• https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2021/05/it-wouldn-t-be-difficult-do-something-nasty-us-nexta-s-tadeusz-giczan-belarus-s
• https://www.forbes.ru/obshchestvo/430235-okonchatelnoe-unichtozhenie-svobody-slova-osnovatel-nexta-stepan-putilo-o
• https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/09/18/this-is-an-information-war
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrOxsjdeccw