76 Facts About Valery Tsepkalo

Valery Vilyamovich Tsepkalo or Valery Vilyamavich Tsapkala is a Belarusian politician and entrepreneur.

Valery Tsepkalo later became an advisor on foreign political and economic relations to the Chairman of the Belarusian Parliament, Stanislav Shushkevich, and then a senior advisor to the Secretary General of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Valery Tsepkalo led Alexander Lukashenko's presidential campaign in the 1994 election and later took the post of First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.

From 1997 to 2002, Valery Tsepkalo was the Belarusian Ambassador to the United States and Mexico.

Valery Tsepkalo was considered to be a major challenger to incumbent president Alexander Lukashenko, who invalidated the majority of Tsepkalo's nomination signatures to bar him from running for president.

Valery Tsepkalo acquired Albanian citizenship in 11 April 2025 along his wife Veronika.

Valery Tsepkalo was born in Grodno on 22 February 1965.

Valery Tsepkalo was the only child of chemical engineers William and Nina Tsapkalo, who came to Grodno to build the Grodno Azot nitrogen plant, where they worked all their lives.

Valery Tsepkalo's father graduated from Odesa Polytechnic Institute, and his mother graduated from Kharkiv Engineering-Economic Institute.

Valery Tsepkalo graduated from Grodno Secondary School No 14 with an advanced study of the English language.

Valery Tsepkalo pursued a postgraduate program there, graduated with honors as well, lectured at MGIMO, and obtained his PhD degree in International Law.

Valery Tsepkalo started his diplomatic career in 1991 as a member of the Soviet Embassy in Finland.

In 1994 during the presidential elections Valery Tsepkalo left Shushkevich and joined the team of Alexander Lukashenko on the recommendation of Dmitry Bulakhov.

Valery Tsepkalo organized Lukashenko's trip to the Russian State Duma in Moscow where Lukashenko met head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov, head of the Agrarians Nikolay Kharitonov, and Liberal Democratic Party of Russia leaders.

Valery Tsepkalo participated in the fulfilment of Soviet obligations on the START-II Treaty, the reduction of conventional forces in Europe, "Partnership for Peace" between NATO and former Soviet Republics, and the Cooperative Threat Reduction Treaty.

Valery Tsepkalo co-chaired with William J Perry, the US Secretary of Defense, a joint US-Belarus commission to dismantle nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and associated infrastructure in the former Soviet States.

Valery Tsepkalo co-chaired the joint commissions on border delimitation and demarcation with Lithuania and Latvia.

Valery Tsepkalo was involved in the preparation of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances according to which the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom guaranteed the territorial integrity of three newly independent states that voluntarily refused to possess nuclear weapons and joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The idea to establish a Belarusian Silicon Valley first appeared when Valery Tsepkalo was visiting Silicon Valley during his diplomatic service in the USA.

Valery Tsepkalo was impressed by the effectiveness of the ecosystem, which stimulated the development of technology companies.

Valery Tsepkalo later described his work on popularization of high technologies among public officials in his book Belarus Hi-Tech Park: 10 Years of Development.

In July 2004, the head of the Presidential Administration Ural Latypov and Valery Tsepkalo gave an online press conference where they described the future park's concept.

The organization was established on 22 September 2005, and on 7 October 2005 Valery Tsepkalo received the director's post.

Valery Tsepkalo saw the park as a tool to stop IT experts leaving the country, and as an enabling environment for Belarusian start-ups.

Valery Tsepkalo warned the authorities of the brain drain danger and referred to data that even with reduced taxes a programmer from HTP paid three times the national average tax.

Apart from the active defence of HTP residents and employees' interests, Valery Tsepkalo supported detained IT entrepreneurs on multiple occasions.

On 2 March 2017, Valery Tsepkalo was dismissed from the director's post at the HTP by presidential decree.

The new HTP director Vsevolod Yanchevski said in a media interview that Valery Tsepkalo could have gone to prison even during his leadership of the HTP: charges of tax violations affected one of the companies, they were compensated and the case was closed.

Valery Tsepkalo consulted governments of the former USSR countries on the establishment of strong IT clusters and took part in a large IT project in Saudi Arabia.

Valery Tsepkalo contributed to the development of the Mirzo Ulugbek Innovation Center in Uzbekistan.

Valery Tsepkalo organized Lukashenko's visit to Moscow, where he visited the State Duma and met with senior officials of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, the Agrarian Party of Russia, and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.

Valery Tsepkalo announced his run for the Belarusian presidency on 8 May 2020, on his Facebook page.

Valery Tsepkalo called the existing regime "a dysfunctional system when the whole nation daily monitors the mood of one person".

Valery Tsepkalo reiterated the need to modernize the economy, end the state assistance to inefficient enterprises, and increase investments in education and health industries.

Valery Tsepkalo offered to use the experience of Scandinavia and modernize Belarusian thermal power stations instead of building a nuclear power plant.

Valery Tsepkalo explained that the "battles for harvests" were useless and the most harm to economics was made by ineffective and outdated management.

Valery Tsepkalo promoted Court and Parliament independence, offered to reject the presidential system, and introduce a two-term limit for presidents.

Valery Tsepkalo stated his intention to establish a proper environment for education and life.

Valery Tsepkalo said that "Lukashenko was detached from society and unaware of people's needs and expectations".

Valery Tsepkalo cultivated a public image of a technocrat, who intended to bring his experience in the IT industry into the government.

Valery Tsepkalo offered to implement a transparent decision-making mechanism as a way to root out corruption in the government.

Valery Tsepkalo supported the Union State initiative in case some parts of the agreement would be altered.

Valery Tsepkalo intended to develop better relations with both the US and the EU.

Valery Tsepkalo emphasized that he saw no stereotypical difference between Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians, and wanted to keep the high status of the Russian language in case of victory in the elections.

Political experts, analysts, and public activists had different opinions regarding Valery Tsepkalo's run for presidency.

Some analysts from the IT industry believed that Valery Tsepkalo was a decoy candidate, approved by the Presidential Administration.

In May 2020 Lukashenko announced that he had incriminating materials on Valery Tsepkalo, regarding the reasons for his dismissal from the director's post at HTP.

Valery Tsepkalo responded by saying that his dismissal was linked to his protest against businessmen detentions and consecutive conflicts with the General Prosecutor and Investigating Committee.

Valery Tsepkalo called Lukashenko's comments "an ordinary practice in the current political system" and explained them as an awkward attempt to raise his ratings.

Valery Tsepkalo announced that he wanted to "reintroduce respect, return respect to all Belarusians".

Valery Tsepkalo said that Lukashenko's security should be guaranteed after his resignation.

The Commission claimed a discrepancy between Veronika Valery Tsepkalo's declared and actual income.

Valery Tsepkalo's team believed the rejection was groundless, disputed the Committee decision and challenged it in the High Court, but without success.

Meanwhile, Veronika Valery Tsepkalo explained the difference between her actual and declared incomes.

On 24 July 2020, Valery Tsepkalo fled to Russia, Ukraine, then Poland and finally to Latvia with his children after receiving a tip that his arrest was imminent and the authorities were prepared to strip him of parental rights.

When Igdegji refused to pay additional money, Valery Tsepkalo allegedly facilitated the annulment of the company's license.

Igdegji confirmed that he reported the bribery with a few years delay and tried to prevent Valery Tsepkalo from using the money on his election campaign.

In October 2022, "a group of citizens united under the general leadership of Valery Tsepkalo" was recognized as an extremist formation by the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

On 7 April 2023 Valery Tsepkalo was sentenced in absentia by a court in Belarus to 17 years of prison, a fine and a five-year ban on holding public office.

On 24 July 2020, Valery Tsepkalo left for Moscow, fearing that he would be jailed and the children would be taken away from the family.

Valery Tsepkalo explained that the prosecutors visited his kids' school and initiated the procedures to deprive Veronika of her maternity rights.

Valery Tsepkalo believed there were no reasons to extradite him from Russia but assured the readiness to come back to Belarus if the political situation heats up.

Valery Tsepkalo wrote an open letter to more than 30 world leaders, including Donald Trump, Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin, with a plea to help Belarus conduct honest elections.

On 2 August 2020, Valery Tsepkalo moved to Kyiv, in a week followed by his wife.

Valery Tsepkalo's departure was urged by the detaining of Maria Kolesnikova, who was taken by mistake instead of Tsepkalo.

Valery Tsepkalo called the case against him politically motivated and not supported by evidence.

Valery Tsepkalo announced the establishment of the 'National Salvation Committee' to unite people against Lukashenko's seizure of power.

On her way to Kyiv, Veronika Valery Tsepkalo was detained by border guards and kept for three hours; the situation was perceived as a political crackdown.

On 6 January 2021 Valery Tsepkalo announced the creation of the Belarusian Democratic Forum that will be held online in response to the decision to convene the All Belarusian People's Assembly.

Valery Tsepkalo denied all accusations and explained that as the director of HTP he was unhappy with articles on Dev.

On 8 May 2020, Valery Tsepkalo announced his run for presidency.

Valery Tsepkalo enclosed a written prohibition to publish the original version.

Valery Tsepkalo published 80 articles on religion, world economy, and foreign policy, 20 articles on e-government, information technology, and intellectual property, including publications in Foreign Affairs.

Valery Tsepkalo holds a patent on the method of searching people based on collateral features, that is used in Prabook project.

Valery Tsepkalo discussed the Russian way of privatization of state assets that resulted in the appearance of oligarchs with the former National Security advisor Zbignew Brzezinski, and foreign policy challengers for the New Independent States with the future National Security Advisor John Bolton.

Valery Tsepkalo had many discussions with Ian Bremmer, who was deeply involved in political risk assessments in the Newly Independent States.