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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has freed jailed opposition leader Sergei Tsikhanouski and more than a dozen other political prisoners and journalists in a surprise move brokered by Doland Trump’s special envoy.
The decision to free Tsikhanouski, who has been imprisoned since challenging Lukashenko for the presidency in 2020, follows a meeting on Saturday between the Belarusian leader and Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine.
“It’s hard to describe the joy in my heart,” said Tsikhanouski’s wife, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who stepped in to run for election instead of her husband after he was jailed and helped lead big protests against Lukashenko.
“We’re not done. 1,150 political prisoners remain behind bars. All must be released,” she added on X, after thanking the US president and European allies.
The 14 prisoners released on Saturday were brought to Lithuania, a neighbouring Baltic state, where reporters filmed Tsikhanouskaya hugging her husband as he stepped smiling out of a minibus.
A spokesperson for the Lithuanian prime minister said the prisoners were freed by Lukashenko following an agreement with Kellogg. They include five Belarusians, three Poles, two Latvians and citizens of Japan, Sweden and Estonia.
Tsikhanouski was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2021. A year earlier, he and other candidates had sought to run against Lukashenko, the country’s first and only president since 1994.
Three women spearhead the election campaign after his arrest, with Tsikhanouskaya joined by Veronika Tsepkalo, the wife of another barred candidate, and Maria Kolesnikova.
Lukashenko claimed victory but the opposition contested the result, pointing to evidence that the vote had been rigged and triggering a wave of protests that rocked the country for months.
Thousands were jailed, including Kolesnikova. She remains imprisoned, as do Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, opposition leader Viktor Babariko and many others.
Ihar Karnei, a former journalist from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty who worked with the outlet for two decades and was detained in 2023, was also released, according to the station.
“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 media outlet’s chief executive Stephen Capus said.