Belarus has freed Siarhei Tsikhanouski, a key dissident determine and the husband of exiled opposition chief Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, and 13 others following a rare visit by a senior U.S. official, Mr. Tsikhanouskaya’s crew introduced on Saturday (June 21, 2025).
Mr. Tsikhanouski, a in style blogger and activist who was imprisoned in 2020, arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania, alongside 13 different political prisoners, his spouse’s crew mentioned. The launch got here simply hours after Belarusian authorities introduced that authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko met with U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy for Ukraine in Minsk. Keith Kellogg turned the highest-ranking U.S. official in years to visit Belarus, Moscow’s shut and dependent ally.
A video printed on Mr. Tsikhanouskaya’s official Telegram account confirmed Mr. Tsikhanouski disembarking from a white minibus, smiling broadly regardless of his shaved head and emaciated body. He pulled his spouse into a lengthy embrace as their supporters applauded.
“My husband is free. It’s difficult to describe the joy in my heart,” Ms. Tsikhanouskaya instructed reporters. But she added her crew’s work is “not finished” whereas over 1,100 political prisoners stay behind bars in Belarus.
Mr. Tsikhanouski, recognized for his anti-Lukashenko slogan “stop the cockroach,” was jailed after saying plans to problem the strongman within the 2020 election. Following his arrest, his spouse ran in his stead, rallying giant crowds throughout the nation. Official outcomes of the election handed Mr. Lukashenko his sixth time period in workplace however had been denounced by the opposition and the West as a sham.
A crackdown snuffed out protests after 2020 election
Tens of 1000’s of individuals poured into the streets within the aftermath of the August 2020 vote, within the largest protests within the nation’s historical past. In the following crackdown, greater than 35,000 folks had been detained, with many crushed by police. Prominent opposition figures both fled the nation or had been imprisoned. Mr. Tsikhanouski was sentenced to 19 1/2 years in jail on expenses of organising mass riots.
Mr. Lukashenko has since prolonged his rule for a seventh time period following a January 2025 election that the opposition referred to as a farce. Since July 2024, he has pardoned practically 300 folks, together with imprisoned U.S. residents, searching for to fix ties with the West.
At the assembly in Minsk, Mr. Lukashenko hugged and warmly welcomed Mr. Kellogg and the American delegation to his residence.
“I really hope that our conversation will be very sincere and open. Otherwise, what is the point of meeting? If we are clever and cunning in front of each other, we will not achieve results,” Mr. Lukashenko mentioned. “You have made a lot of noise in the world with your arrival.”
Mr. Lukashenko’s press secretary, Natalya Eismont, instructed Russian state media hours later that he freed the 14 prisoners following a request from U.S. President Donald Trump.
It was not instantly clear whether or not Mr. Kellogg’s visit may pave the way in which for the lifting of some US sanctions towards Minsk, imposed over the brutal crackdown towards the 2020 protests and Mr. Lukashenko’s assist of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine.
“Lukashenko is clearly trying to get out of international isolation, and the release of such a large group of political prisoners signals a desire to start a dialogue with the U.S. in order to soften international sanctions,” Belarusian political analyst Valery Karbalevich instructed The Associated Press.
“After five years, Lukashenko is trying to loosen the knot with which the Kremlin tied him, using him for the war against Ukraine,” Mr. Karbalevich mentioned.
Belarus has allowed the Kremlin to make use of its territory to ship troops and weapons into Ukraine, and in addition to station its forces and nuclear weapons there.
Others stay behind bars
Many different outstanding dissidents nonetheless languish in Belarusian jails, amongst them Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, a human rights advocate serving a 10-year jail sentence on expenses extensively denounced as politically motivated.
Mr. Bialiatski, founding father of Viasna, Belarus’ oldest and most outstanding rights group, was arrested in 2021 throughout raids by the nation’s foremost safety company that also goes by its Soviet-era title, the KGB.
In March 2023, he was convicted on expenses of smuggling and financing actions that (*13*) and sentenced to 10 years. Authorities labelled him particularly harmful due to alleged “extremist” tendencies.
He, his household and supporters say the costs towards him are politically motivated, and a U.N. panel of human rights specialists referred to as on Belarus to launch him. In 2022, when Mr. Bialiatski was behind bars, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with the outstanding Russian rights group Memorial and Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties.
Mr. Bialiatski has been serving his sentence at a penal colony for repeat offenders within the metropolis of Gorki. The facility is infamous for beatings and onerous labour. Mr. Bialiatski’s spouse warned final 12 months about his deteriorating well being, saying the 62-year-old battles a number of power sicknesses.
Also behind bars is Viktor Babaryka, a former banker who was extensively seen in 2020 as Mr. Lukashenko’s foremost electoral rival, and Maria Kolesnikova, a shut ally of Mr. Tsikhanouskaya and charismatic chief of that 12 months’s mass protests. With her close-cropped hair and trademark gesture of forming her fingers into the form of a coronary heart, Mr. Kolesnikova turned a fair larger image of resistance when Belarusian authorities tried to deport her. She responded by tearing up her passport on the border and strolling again into Belarus.
A journalist walks free, however many extra languish
Released alongside Mr. Tsikhanouski was longtime Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty correspondent Ihar Karnei, the U.S. government-funded broadcaster confirmed. Mr. Karnei, who had additionally labored with outstanding Belarusian and Russian newspapers, had been serving a three-year service on extremism expenses he rejected as a sham.
“The release was a big surprise for me,” Mr. Karnei told AP in a phone interview Saturday. “I didn’t believe it until the very end, but now I understand that other political prisoners deserve the same.”
He mentioned that he spent about six months in solitary confinement.
“Most people suffer simply for their beliefs and do not deserve these terrible conditions and terms,” Mr. Karnei mentioned.
RFE/RL’s Belarusian service had been designated extremist within the nation, a widespread label handed to anybody who criticizes Lukashenko’s authorities. As a outcome, working for it or spreading its content material has turn into a prison offense.
“We are deeply grateful to President Trump for securing the release of this brave journalist, who suffered at the hands of the Belarusian authorities,” the broadcaster’s CEO Stephen Capus mentioned Saturday in a press launch.
Mr. Karnei was detained a number of occasions whereas overlaying the 2020 protests. Unlike a lot of his colleagues, he selected to remain in Belarus regardless of the following repression. He was arrested once more in July 2023, as police raided his condo seizing telephones and computer systems.
The group Reporters Without Borders says Belarus is Europe’s main jailer of journalists. At least 40 are serving lengthy jail sentences, in line with the impartial Belarusian Association of Journalists. Many face beatings, poor medical care and the shortcoming to contact legal professionals or kin, in line with activists and former inmates.
Belarus additionally freed an Estonian nationwide who had arrange an NGO to boost funds for Belarusian refugees. According to the Estonian Foreign Ministry, Allan Roio was detained final January, and sentenced to six 1/2 years in jail on expenses of building an extremist organisation.
