Cliff Notes
- Siarhei Tsikhanouski, a jailed Belarusian opposition leader, has been released alongside 13 other political prisoners following US envoy Keith Kellogg’s visit to Belarus for discussions with President Alexander Lukashenko.
- Tsikhanouski’s release comes after his wife, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, became an opposition figure in exile after he was imprisoned for candidacy-related charges in the 2020 elections, widely deemed fraudulent.
- The release has been praised as a symbol of hope by European leaders, although over 1,100 political prisoners remain incarcerated in Belarus.
Belarus opposition leader Siarhei Tsikhanouski freed from jail after rare visit by top US envoy
A jailed opposition leader in Belarus has been freed and is now in Lithuania.
Siarhei Tsikhanouski was released along with 13 other political prisoners following talks between Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Keith Kellogg, who is President Trump‘s envoy for Ukraine.
Mr Kellogg became the highest-ranking US official in years to visit Belarus, which is a close ally of Russia.
Mr Tsikhanouski, a blogger and activist, was arrested after announcing he would run for the presidency against Mr Lukashenko in the 2020 election. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison the following year after a court found him guilty of organising mass unrest and of inciting social hatred.
After he was detained, his wife Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya ran in his place and she became an opposition leader who is now in exile in Lithuania.
Although Mr Lukashenko was officially declared the winner of the election, the result was denounced by the opposition and the West as a sham.
On Saturday, a video on Ms Tsikhanouskaya’s social media showed Mr Tsikhanouski getting out of a minibus and smiling despite his emaciated appearance. He and his wife hugged as their supporters clapped.
She said: “My husband is free. It’s difficult to describe the joy in my heart.”
She thanked Mr Trump, Mr Kellogg and “all European allies” for their efforts in getting him released.
But she added her team’s work was “not finished”, with more than 1,100 political prisoners still locked up in Belarus.
The 14 who were freed on Saturday included five Belarus nationals as well as three Poles, two Latvians, two Japanese citizens, one Estonian and one Swede.
Among those released was Ihar Karnei, a former journalist at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
‘Free world needs you’
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on X the release was “fantastic news and a powerful symbol of hope for all the political prisoners suffering under the brutal Lukashenka (sic) regime”.
“The free world needs you, Siarhei!”, Poland’s foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on X.
At the meeting between Mr Lukashenko and Mr Kellogg in the Belarusian capital Minsk, the pair hugged.
Mr Lukashenko said: “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. You have made a lot of noise in the world with your arrival.”
Mr Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, secured a seventh term in office following an election in January this year that the opposition called a farce.
Could Belarus sanctions be lifted?
It was not immediately clear whether Mr Kellogg’s visit might pave the way for the lifting of some US sanctions against Belarus.
They were imposed over the crackdown on the 2020 protests and Mr Lukashenko’s support of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Belarus has allowed the Kremlin to use its territory to send troops and weapons into Ukraine, and also to put its forces and nuclear weapons there.