Yury Koziyatko

Yury Koziyatko (Юрий Васильевич Козиятко, Юры Казіятка, born April 24, 1964, in Brest, Belarus) is a Belarusian politician, TV presenter and propagandist. He has been accused of propaganda supporting and justifying human rights violations in Belarus and included in a sanctions list of the European Union in 2011-2016.

Early years and education
Yury Koziyatko born on April 24, 1964, in Brest. He graduated from the Kurgan Higher Military-Political Aviation School in Kurgan, Russia. During his service at the Soviet Army, he worked as a military journalist in a newspaper of the Soviet Pacific Fleet and as a TV host in Vladivostok, Russia.

Career
Belarusian Association of Journalists refers to Koziyatko as 'the third main propagandist in Belarus' after Yury Azarenok and Alexander Zimovsky.

In the early 1990s Koziyatko quit the Russian Army and returned to Belarus. He first worked for a Belarusian military TV production company, in 1996 he switched to the main state-owned TV channel Belarus-1 where he became a political commentator and hosted two shows, "Topic of the Day", and "Panorama Saturday".

In 2003, he became Chairman at the state-owned TV channel ONT. In 2004, he released a 12-series documentary 'Noveyshaya Istoriya' ('Recent History') where he supported and justified all Lukashenko's actions. The film enjoyed state support and was shown at screenings organised by ideological state officials, which were compulsory for employees of state owned enterprises to attend. In December 2005, Koziyatko was appointed Chairman at a different state-owned TV channel, Capital TV.

In 2012, Koziyatko was appointed member of the upper chamber of the Parliament of Belarus.

In September 2016, Koziyatko was awarded the Order of Honour.

In February 2018, he was dismissed from Capital TV and appointed deputy director of the "Minsk-Novosti" agency. From "Minsk-Novosti", Koziyatko was dismissed in 2018.

He has been a blogger since 2022, running his 'Picture of the World' channel. The blog is dedicated to Belarus and covers its history, landmarks and places of interest. However, as noted by BAJ, the channel has only about 1700 followers.

Accusations, EU sanctions
In 2011, after the wave of repressions that followed the 2010 presidential election, Yury Koziyatko and several other top managers and employees of major state media became subject to an EU travel ban and asset freeze as part of a sanctions list of 208 individuals responsible for political repressions, electoral fraud and propaganda in Belarus. The sanctions were lifted in 2016.

According to the EU Council's decision, Koziyatko's TV show was described as "an instrument of state propaganda which supports and justifies the repression of the democratic opposition and of civil society. Democratic opposition and civil society are systematically highlighted in a negative and derogatory way using falsified information. He was particularly active in this regard after the crackdown on peaceful demonstrations on 19 December 2010 and on subsequent protests.