Dissident Sergei Tikhanovsky, husband of exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a popular blogger and activist, has been released from prison, along with 13 other political prisoners, the non-governmental organization Vyasna announced today, AFP reported.
The AP agency writes that Tikhanovsky and the others who were released arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania, just hours after Belarusian authorities announced that the country's authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko met in Minsk with Keith Kellogg, US President Donald Trump's envoy for Ukraine.
Tikhanovsky was imprisoned in 2020 after announcing a plan to challenge Lukashenko in that year's presidential election. After his arrest, his wife ran in his place, rallying large crowds of supporters across the country. The official election results gave Lukashenko a sixth term, but the opposition and the West denounced them as fraudulent.
Amid unprecedented protests that erupted after the vote, Tikhanovskaya fled the country under pressure from the authorities. Her husband was later sentenced to 19 and a half years in prison on charges of organizing mass riots.
Tikhanovskaya today, AFP reports, thanked Trump and his European partners for securing the release of her husband, who was imprisoned in Belarus for more than five years.
"My husband Sergei is free! It's hard to describe my joy. We're not done because 1.150 political prisoners are behind bars. They all need to be released," Tikhanovskaya wrote on the X platform.
Belarusian authorities have also released 14 prisoners at the request of US President Donald Trump, John Cole, deputy special envoy to Kit Kellogg, said today, TASS reported.
"We just returned from Belarus with 14 people who have now been released from detention," Cole wrote on the X platform hosted by the US Embassy in Lithuania.
Cole thanked the Lithuanian government for its cooperation and assistance, adding that Trump was "encouraged by his trip" to the region.
The US official said he had previously traveled to Belarus, after which Minsk released American citizen Yuri Zenkovich. He added that this time "14 people from different countries were released."
Earlier, Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ruslan Varankov said that Minsk sees potential for interaction with the current US administration and is open to dialogue in all areas of cooperation.
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