FACT CHECK: Online Passport Applications Targeting Belarusian Exiles Are Fake | VOA News

In recent weeks, ads promoting online questionnaires and applications for obtaining Belarusian passports allegedly issued by the Belarusian opposition’s government-in-exile have been popping up on Belarusian social media and YouTube channels.

The forms, written in Belarusian, target the estimated 2 million Belarusians living outside their homeland. Those include hundreds of thousands of people that fled President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime. He has been the country’s president for 30 years.

Last September, Lukashenko ordered Belarusian diplomatic missions to stop issuing passports to citizens living abroad.

The online passport forms ask applicants to provide detailed personal data, including their full name, date of birth, current address, country of residence, complete data from foreign government-issued ID and detailed information about family members.

The forms feature a close facsimile of the insignia of the transitional government formed in 2022 by Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. Dubbed the United Transitional Cabinet (UTC) of Belarus, this executive body includes representatives of Belarus’ democratic movement, business sector and security apparatus.

Last August, the transitional government announced it would issue citizenship passports to Belarusians living in foreign countries.

In December, UTC foreign affairs representative Valery Kovalevsky told European Radio for Belarus, a Warsaw-based station, that his government planned to begin issuing its first passports in March 2024.

However, the recently advertised forms are fake and believed to be part of a data collection operation by Lukashenko’s intelligence services. #factcheck #voanews

https://www.polygraph.info/a/fact-che...

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