‘Siarhei is free’ Belarusian opposition leader says husband plans to ‘continue the fight’ after sudden release from prison
The Belarusian opposition celebrated a win over the weekend as 14 political prisoners were unexpectedly freed, including Siarhei Tsikhanouski, the husband of exiled former presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. The prisoner release came hours after a meeting between Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko and U.S. presidential envoy Keith Kellogg in Minsk on Saturday. Lukashenko’s spokesperson later said that he had pardoned the prisoners at President Donald Trump’s request. The released prisoners were immediately transported to Lithuania, where Tsikhanouski reunited with his family. During a press conference on Sunday, the couple thanked the United States for brokering the prisoner release, urging Trump to help free the hundreds of political prisoners still behind bars in Belarus.
Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya reunited with her husband in Vilnius on Saturday, after he was released from Belarusian custody along with a group of other political prisoners. Tsikhanouskaya shared a video of their reunion on Telegram, along with a statement that said:
Siarhei is free. He’s with me and the children. The thing our family dreamed about for five years and that we all worked for since the moment of his arrest has happened. Siarhei’s release is a step towards the release of all political prisoners and all of Belarus. We thank everyone for the colossal support.
Thirteen other political prisoners were also freed, including former RFE/RL Belarusian service journalist Ihar Karnei; former Minsk State Linguistic University professor Natallia Dulina; anarchist activist Akikhiro Hayeuski-Hanada; Belarusian-Swedish national Halina Krasnianskay; defendant in the Belarusian National Shield Union Case Kiryl Balakhonau; and businessman Siarhei Sheleh.
According to Tsikhanouskaya’s advisor Dzianis Kuchynski, eight foreign nationals were released in total. Among those identified so far are Polish citizen Jerzy Żywolewski, Estonian citizen Allan Roio, and Latvian nationals Jurijs Gaņins and Dmitrijs Mihailovs.
The sudden release came immediately after U.S. presidential envoy Keith Kellogg met with Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko in Minsk on Saturday. In a video statement, Kellogg’s aide John Coale, who took part in the visit, said that President Donald Trump “encouraged” the trip to Belarus. “The United States is now strong, so we can get these kinds of things done,” he said. “We got 14 people from different countries [who] are now free.”
Coale said that the U.S. delegation met the prisoners on a “back road” and that they did not know they were set to be released. “They didn’t know what was going on, and I said, ‘You’re free! You’re free!’ Some of them spoke English, got the message, and told the others, and everything changed,” he recalled. “When they heard they were free, they were ecstatic.”
‘He wants to continue the fight’
Lukashenko’s spokesperson Natalya Eismont later confirmed that the Belarusian leader ordered the prisoners’ release at Trump’s request. She also claimed that the decision to release Tsikhanouski “was made solely for humanitarian reasons, with the goal of family reunification.”
Tsikhanouski rose to prominence as an opposition figure in 2019 with his popular YouTube channel Country for Life, where he criticized the Belarusian government. He announced plans to run in the country’s 2020 presidential election but was barred from registering as a candidate. His wife, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, ran in his place, with her husband serving as her campaign manager. He was arrested later that year at a signature-gathering rally and, in December 2021, sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Though Tsikhanouskaya’s presidential campaign galvanized widespread support, Lukashenko declared victory in the 2020 election, sparking large-scale protests across Belarus that lasted for months. The authorities violently suppressed the demonstrations, carrying out a prolonged crackdown on dissent. Under pressure from the regime, Tsikhanouskaya fled abroad with her children.
Beginning in March 2023, Tsikhanouski was held incommunicado and in complete isolation. During a press conference with Tsikhanouskaya on Sunday, the 46-year-old broke down in tears when asked about being reunited with their two children after five years in prison. Tsikhanouskaya then explained that their nine-year-old daughter had not recognized her father because his appearance had changed so much.
The couple thanked the U.S. and President Trump for brokering the prisoner release, calling for more political prisoners to be freed. “President Trump now has the power and opportunity to free all political prisoners in Belarus with a single word. And I ask him to do this, to say the word,” Tsikhanouski said.
Tsikhanouski also told journalists that he has no plans to challenge his wife’s position as opposition leader. “I’m not going to lay claim to anything here. A person who spent five years in isolation can’t be the leader. We have thousands of leaders like me,” he said.
The June prisoner release is the latest in a series of “amnesties” that began in the summer of 2024. In January, Lukashenko’s press service reported that the Belarusian leader has pardoned 293 people over the past year. Another 42 political prisoners were reportedly released in May. According to the human rights group Viasna, 1,174 political prisoners remain in captivity in Belarus.
“I can see what prison did to Siarhei. The weight he lost — the pain. But I also see the fire in his eyes. He didn’t ask for rest today — he wants to continue the fight,” Tsikhanouskaya wrote on social media on Monday. “That’s how I know him. And that’s why we keep going. For everyone still behind bars. For a free Belarus.”
