Belarus has released Siarhei Tsikhanouski, a leading dissident figure and the husband of exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, following negotiations with the Trump Administration.
Tsikhanouski, a popular blogger and activist, was jailed in 2020 following a controversial presidential election in August of that year.
On Saturday, Tsikhanouskaya and 13 other political prisoners arrived in Lithuania after their release was secured, his wife’s office said in a statement.
A video published on his wife’s official Telegram account showed Tsikhanouski disembarking a white minibus after arriving in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, Breitbart News reported.
“My husband is free. It’s difficult to describe the joy in my heart,” Tsikhanouskaya told reporters. She added that her team’s work is “not finished” while over 1,100 political prisoners remain imprisoned in the Russia-aligned nation.
The release came just hours after Belarusian authorities announced that authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko met with President Trump’s envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, in the Belorussian capital of Minsk.
Tsikhanouski was jailed after announcing plans to challenge Lukashenko in the nation’s 2020 presidential election. Following his arrest, his wife ran in his stead, and managed to rally massive crowds across the country.
Lukashenko was ultimately declared the winner of the election, which granted him a sixth term in office, though the election has been described as a sham by several world leaders. Tsikhanouskaya left the country under pressure from authorities, while unprecedented protests broke out in the aftermath of the election.
Also released Saturday was longtime Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty correspondent Ihar Karnei, the U.S. government-funded broadcaster confirmed.
The outlet’s Belorussian affiliates had been declared as “extremist” platforms by Lukashenko’s government, which made working with them a criminal 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 said Saturday in a press release.
