Belarus frees key opposition figure Siarhei Tsikhanouski following rare visit from top US envoy

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

Tsikhanouski, a popular blogger and activist who was jailed 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, Keith Kellogg, in Minsk.

A video published on his wife's official Telegram account showed Tsikhanouski disembarking a white minibus, with a shaved head and broad smile. He pulled Tsikhanouskaya 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 was jailed after announcing plans to challenge Lukashenko 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.

As unprecedented protests broke out in the aftermath of the vote, Tsikhanouskaya left the country under pressure from the authorities. Her husband was later sentenced to 19 1/2 years in prison on charges of organizing mass riots.

Other prominent dissidents remain 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. 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 charismatic leader of that year's mass protests.

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.

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.

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.