“…Self-organisation, local mobilisation and grassroots solidarity were dramatically challenged, however, by brute force and Belarusians responded with "peaceful partisan tactics" (Shparaga, 2021: 13), including many that were light-hearted and satirical (for the new vocabulary of protest, see Perova, 2020), emotional, politically determined and stubbornly hopeful. The plethora of initiatives that arose -solidarity and aid for victims of violence, aids in all forms for prisoners and their families, human rights groups, cultural and sports solidarity initiatives, assistance for strikers, students, 'relocators' and so on (BySol, 2021;Astapenia, 2020b; see also Tsikhanouskaya, 2021b), functioned as the web sustaining a growing civil society and at the same time as a show of strength, working as a "horizontal watchdog" over the Lukashenko regime (Shparaga, 2021: 156).…”