Following the Russian-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968, it was not only The Eight Brave Ones—the Russians in Red Square—who protested; Belarusians protested as well.

Michas Kukabaka personally delivered a statement to the Czechoslovak mission in the USSR condemning the “entry of Soviet troops.” He spent nearly seventeen years in labor camps and forced “psychiatric treatment.” He repeatedly refused to ask for a pardon.

Valjancin Taras categorically condemned the invasion. He was fired from his job, barred from publishing, and kept under constant KGB surveillance. He never retracted his opposition to the occupation of Czechoslovakia.

Aljaksej Karpjuk openly condemned the invasion; from his office in the center of Hrodna, he demonstratively played BBC radio broadcasts about the events in Czechoslovakia out of his window. As a reserve officer, he was mobilized and was to be sent to Czechoslovakia. He intended to use this to write reports on what was actually happening there. However, he was discovered and discharged from the army as politically unreliable. He was prevented from publishing and remained under constant KGB surveillance.

Anatol Sidarevič, as a student, publicly condemned the invasion of Czechoslovakia. He was detained by the KGB and spent four months in forced “psychiatric care” at a hospital in Minsk.