Belarusian opposition leader released from prison in US-mediated agreement
Lithuania’s authorities said on Saturday that Siarhei Tsikhanouski, the leader of the Belarusian opposition, and thirteen other inmates had been freed from Lithuanian prisons.
According to a representative for Lithuania’s prime minister, U.S. special envoy Keith Kellogg mediated the release.
Belarus’ official news agency Belta reported that Kellogg had previously visited with President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus.
In a message on the social media site X, Tsikhanouski’s wife Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya praised Kellogg and others, along with U.S. President Donald Trump, for their efforts to obtain her husband’s release.
On her X account, Tsikhanouskaya stated, “We’re not done,” demanding the release of an additional 1,150 inmates.
According to a statement from the president’s spokesperson, Natalya Eismont, Lukashenko granted pardons to everyone who was freed in response to a request from the United States.
Eismont claimed that the 14 released detainees, including Belarusian nationals, had been “convicted of extremist and terrorist activity” in a statement posted on the president’s close friend’s Pul Pervogo Telegram channel.
The president “took the decision to free Tsikhanouski purely on humanitarian considerations with aim of family reunification,” she stated.
On a video published by her office, Tsikhanouski was seen getting out of a truck with his head shorn, grinning, and leaping up to give his wife a deep embrace.
As the top U.S. official to visit Belarus in years, Kellogg viewed his trip as a chance to assist spark peace negotiations to stop Russia’s war against Ukraine, according to a Reuters article on Tuesday.
“President Trump encouraged this trip,” said John Coale, Kellogg’s deputy, in a video that was uploaded to his X account.
According to presidential spokesperson Eismont, who was cited by the Belta agency, Kellogg and Lukashenko had a 6-1/2-hour dinner conversation that started on Friday night.
“It was night when it ended,” Eismont was cited as saying, adding that the two sides talked about sanctions policy, the Middle East, Russia, Belarus, and China relations, as well as the turmoil in Ukraine.
“The topics covered were as up-to-date as one could imagine. They discussed issues that affect the entire world.
DETAINEES RELEASED FROM VARIOUS COUNTRIES
According to Lithuania, five people of Belarus were freed, together with three Poles, two Latvians, two Japanese, one Estonian, and one Swede.
In a statement praising Trump, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and others, RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus announced that Ihar Karnei, a former journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was one of those freed by Belarus.
“We thank Secretary Rubio and his team, the Lithuanian government, and the international community for their support of our imprisoned journalists,” he stated.
POLAND AND VON DER LEYEN GREET THE RELEASE
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, described the release as “fantastic news and a powerful symbol of hope for all the political prisoners suffering under the brutal Lukashenka (sic) regime” in a post on X.
“The free world needs you, Siarhei!” remarked Radoslaw Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, on X.
In 2021, a Belarusian court sentenced 43-year-old video blogger Tsikhanouski to one of the harshest prison terms in contemporary Belarusian history after finding him guilty of inciting societal hatred and orchestrating widespread upheaval.
His wife has referred to the decision as political retaliation, and his supporters have said that the accusations were false and politically motivated.
Mass protests erupted after Lukashenko declared he had won the elections, and his wife ran in his place. Since then, Tsikhanouskaya has fled the nation to live in exile in Lithuania.
A request for comment on Kellogg’s motivation for visiting Minsk and meeting Lukashenko was not immediately answered by the State Department.
