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In 2016, the "Reformation" project ( rfrm.io) was created – a platform for exchanging opinions on necessary reforms in Belarus. Over the course of several years, hundreds of longreads on the necessary changes in our country have been published. We collaborated with leading Belarusian think tanks and, in simple language, presented ideas that could help Belarus become a modern European state.

In 2018, the project moved to the Reform.by domain and became a fully-fledged media outlet with a newsroom, reporters, and an investigative department. We continued to engage with leading experts in Central and Eastern Europe about the future of the region and Belarus as an integral part of the European community. Our editorial team conducted dozens of important and high-profile investigations: on Russia's hybrid influence, the migration crisis on the EU's borders, the activities of intelligence agencies in the Belarusian diaspora, and the Belarusian government's evasion of sanctions.

By August 2020, Reform.by was one of the most popular socio-political media outlets in Belarus. Hundreds of thousands of Belarusians visited the site daily when the editorial team found itself at the epicenter of events that unfolded after the rigged presidential election. Our journalists were detained and sent to pretrial detention centers.

In the summer of 2021, the editorial team left Belarus under threat of criminal prosecution. In August 2021, the Reform.by website was blocked in Belarus, and in February 2022, it was blocked or deprecated on all Russian services popular with Belarusians. The website's daily audience decreased by more than tenfold. We are currently compensating for this decline by developing the project on alternative platforms.

On April 15, 2024, the OAC took over the Reform.by domain from the editorial office. The project continued operating under a new address—Reform.news.

Editorial

We were able to quickly restore operations, and not a single Reform.news employee was imprisoned. Since 2021, the team has been operating from Warsaw as a newsroom in exile. Reform.news has a staff of just 10 people – managers, editors, and journalists.

Our compact staff allows us to update a detailed, unique, and timely news feed, write original analysis for stakeholders, conduct interviews and investigations, monitor cultural events, and even create several unique products for YouTube and TikTok. We produce special projects on gender equality,civil society, the political history of Belarus, and our vision for democratic reform in Belarus.

Reform.by regularly ranks high in the Media IQ monitoring rankings for adherence to news journalism standards. Our editorial policy is based on facts and analysis.

In June 2023, Reform.news won the 2023 Free Media Awards for its coverage of Belarus under particularly challenging circumstances.

In 2024, the editor-in-chief of Reform.news became the laureate of the Krzysztof Michalski Prize for Belarusian journalists in exile.

At the end of 2024, Reform.news editor-in-chief Fyodor Pavlyuchenko was named "Journalist of the Year 2024" by the Human Rights Society of Belarus.

In September 2025, the editorial team of Reform.news received two awards in the "Free Speech" competition.