Exclusive: Belarus releases political prisoners in surprise decision
Belarus has released a group of political prisoners on Saturday, in a US-brokered deal with President Aliaksandr Lukashenka, Belarusian opposition sources told Euronews.
Exiled Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya's husband Siarhei Tsikhanouski is among the released.
Lukashenka's regime arrested him in 2020 as the then-Belarusian opposition presidential candidate and Lukashenka's direct opponent.
The surprise release was brokered by US envoy Keith Kellogg, a longtime advisor to US President Donald Trump, who travelled to Belarus earlier this week for talks with Lukashenka.
Since last year, Lukashenka has been regularly pardoning small numbers of imprisoned government critics in what analysts saw as a signal that Minsk was seeking to ease tensions with the West.
In the run-up to the January 2025 presidential elections, Lukashenka has pardoned prisoners convicted of extremism, claiming that it was a "humane gesture" toward those who had "gone astray".
Kellogg, US special envoy for Russia's war against Ukraine, has said privately that the trip to Minsk could help kickstart peace talks aimed at ending Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to two of the sources.
Earlier, exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya told Euronews that Lukashenka "cannot be trusted' and Belarus is not a place for negotiations because Lukashenka "is part of this war".
Lukashenka is a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has allowed him to stage part of his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 from Belarus.
"He's a co-aggressor and he's serving Putin's interest, and he cannot be trusted at all," Tsikhanouskaya told Euronews.
She described Russia's war in Ukraine as a blessing for Lukashenka and that he did not want it to stop.
"(The government) is producing a huge amount of stuff for Russian army, and in this atmosphere of sanctions against Lukashenka's regime, it's a good source of income for him," she added.
Who is Siarhei Tsikanouski?
Previously a popular blogger, Siarhei Tsikhanouski decided to run against Lukashenka in the 2020 presidential elections and was arrested in spring, long before the summer protests in Belarus.
Tsikhanouski was first given 'administrative detention' which prevented him from filing his candidacy before the deadline. His wife Tsikhanouskaya filed her candidacy instead, emerging as a leading opposition candidate.
A Minsk court sentenced Tsikhanouski to 18 years in prison with the harshest possible conditions. He has not been allowed family visits and telephone calls. He has also not been allowed to meet with his lawyer confidentially, read, send letters, or receive letters and parcels.
In 2023 he was given a new sentence of 1.5 years in prison in addition to the 18-year sentence he was already serving on the charge of 'disobedience to prison administration'.
Tsikhanouskaya had no contact with her husband since he was jailed. She previously told Euronews that she did not know if he was alive.
'My children write letters to him, but they get no response. They ask if their father is okay, if he is still alive—it's an incredibly painful situation. My husband's imprisonment is my personal pain, but my goal is to free all political prisoners,' the Belarusian opposition leader said in an earlier interview with Euronews.**
Lukashenka claimed victory in the 2020 presidential election deemed fraudulent by the EU and external observers, triggering mass protests.
They were violently crushed by police, with tens of thousands of peaceful protesters arrested, and countless detainees suffering torture and other ill-treatment.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya went into exile for fear of prosecution. Many of her close associates, including her closest companion during the election campaign, Maryia Kalesnikava, were jailed.
According to the Belarusian human rights centre Vyasna, over 50,000 people have been detained on political grounds after mass protests broke out following Lukashenka's 2020 presidential election win, and at least 5,472 people have been convicted in politically-motivated criminal cases.
The United Nations estimates that around 300,000 Belarusians have left the country since then, with most going to Poland and Lithuania.
Even today, between 15 and 20 people are being detained in Belarus every day.
In 2023, Tsikhanouskaya was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
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