Belarus frees dissident Siarhei Tsikhanouski and 13 others after a rare visit from top US envoy

TALLINN, Estonia — Belarus has freed Siarhei Tsikhanouski, a key dissident figure and the husband of exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, and 13 others following a rare visit by a senior U.S. official, Tsikhanouskaya's team announced on Saturday.

Tsikhanouski, a popular blogger and activist who was imprisoned in 2020, arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania, alongside 13 other political prisoners, his wife's team said. The release came just hours after Belarusian authorities announced that authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko met with U.S. President Donald Trump's envoy for Ukraine in Minsk. Keith Kellogg became the highest-ranking U.S. official in years to visit Belarus, Moscow's close and dependent ally.

A video published on Tsikhanouskaya's official Telegram account showed Tsikhanouski disembarking from a white minibus, smiling broadly despite his shaved head and emaciated frame. He pulled his wife into a long embrace as their supporters applauded.

''My husband is free. It's difficult to describe the joy in my heart,'' Tsikhanouskaya told reporters. But she added her team's work is ''not finished'' while over 1,100 political prisoners remain behind bars in Belarus.

Tsikhanouski, known for his anti-Lukashenko slogan ''stop the cockroach,'' was jailed after announcing plans to challenge the strongman in the 2020 election. Following his arrest, his wife ran in his stead, rallying large crowds across the country. Official results of the election handed Lukashenko his sixth term in office but were denounced by the opposition and the West as a sham.

A crackdown snuffed out protests after 2020 election

Tens of thousands of people poured into the streets in the aftermath of the August 2020 vote, in the largest protests in the country's history. In the ensuing crackdown, more than 35,000 people were detained, with many beaten by police. Prominent opposition figures either fled the country or were imprisoned. Tsikhanouski was sentenced to 19 1/2 years in prison on charges of organizing mass riots.

Lukashenko has since extended his rule for a seventh term following a January 2025 election that the opposition called a farce. Since July 2024, he has pardoned nearly 300 people, including imprisoned U.S. citizens, seeking to mend ties with the West.

At the meeting in Minsk, Lukashenko hugged and warmly welcomed 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,'' Lukashenko said. ''You have made a lot of noise in the world with your arrival.''

Lukashenko's press secretary, Natalya Eismont, told Russian state media hours later that he freed the 14 prisoners following a request from U.S. President Donald Trump. Eismont said among those released were two Japanese nationals, three Polish nationals and two Latvians, as well as citizens of Estonia, Sweden and the United States.

It was not immediately clear whether Kellogg's visit might pave the way for the lifting of some U.S. sanctions against Minsk, imposed over the brutal crackdown against the 2020 protests and Lukashenko's support 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 told 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,'' Karbalevich said.

Belarus has allowed the Kremlin to use its territory to send troops and weapons into Ukraine, and also to station its forces and nuclear weapons there.

A journalist walks free, but many more languish

Released alongside Tsikhanouski was longtime Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty correspondent Ihar Karnei, the U.S. government-funded broadcaster confirmed. Karnei, who had also worked with prominent Belarusian and Russian newspapers, had been serving a three-year service on extremism charges he rejected as a sham.

''The release was a big surprise for me,'' 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 said 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,'' Karnei said.

RFE/RL's Belarusian service had been designated extremist in the country, a common label handed to anyone who criticizes Lukashenko's government. As a result, working for it or spreading its content has become 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.

Karnei was detained several times while covering the 2020 protests. Unlike many of his colleagues, he chose to stay in Belarus despite the ensuing repression. He was arrested again in July 2023, as police raided his apartment seizing phones and computers.

The group Reporters Without Borders says Belarus is Europe's leading jailer of journalists. At least 40 are serving long prison sentences, according to the independent Belarusian Association of Journalists. Many face beatings, poor medical care and the inability to contact lawyers or relatives, according to activists and former inmates.

Belarus also freed an Estonian national who had set up an NGO to raise funds for Belarusian refugees. According to the Estonian Foreign Ministry, Allan Roio was detained last January, and sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison on charges of establishing an extremist organization.

Others remain behind bars

Many other prominent dissidents still languish in Belarusian jails, among them Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, a human rights advocate serving a 10-year prison sentence on charges widely denounced as politically motivated.

Bialiatski, founder of Viasna, Belarus' oldest and most prominent rights group, was arrested in 2021 during raids by the country's main security agency that still goes by its Soviet-era name, the KGB.

In March 2023, he was convicted on charges of smuggling and financing actions that ''grossly violated public order,'' and sentenced to 10 years. Authorities labeled him especially dangerous because of alleged ''extremist'' tendencies.

He, his family and supporters say the charges against him are politically motivated, and a U.N. panel of human rights experts called on Belarus to release him. In 2022, when Bialiatski was behind bars, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with the prominent Russian rights group Memorial and Ukraine's Center for Civil Liberties.

Bialiatski has been serving his sentence at a penal colony for repeat offenders in the city of Gorki. The facility is notorious for beatings and hard labor. Bialiatski's wife warned last year about his deteriorating health, saying the 62-year-old battles multiple chronic illnesses.

Also behind bars is Viktor Babaryka, a former banker who was widely seen in 2020 as Lukashenko's main electoral rival, and Maria Kolesnikova, a close ally of Tsikhanouskaya and charismatic leader of that year's mass protests. With her close-cropped hair and trademark gesture of forming her hands into the shape of a heart, Kolesnikova became an even greater symbol of resistance when Belarusian authorities tried to deport her. She responded by tearing up her passport at the border and walking back into Belarus.

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Kozlowska reported from London.