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Belarus Released from the high opposition, Sergei Tikhanovsky and more than a dozen other political prisoners on Saturday following a White House call, the Tsikhanouskaya team announced on Saturday, a sign of warming between Washington and Bélarus in Moscow.
The liberation intervened a few hours after the retirement of Lieutenant-General Kellogg, President Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, met Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk, the most prominent visit of an American official in the authoritarian state for years.
Tikhanovsky’s wife Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who took the opposition movement, after her husband’s imprisonment, thanked President Trump directly for concluding the agreement.
Sviatlana tsikhanouskaya Office via AP 
Lukashenko spokesperson said Belarusian chief had ordered prisoners’ release on Trump’s “request”, Russian state media reported.
Mr. Trump seemed to take creditWriting “Thank you President Trump!” On his social platform Truth, in parallel with a link to a news on the release of the prisoner.
European politicians and exiled opposition members of Bélarus also praised the news.
“This is a fantastic news and a powerful symbol of hope for all political prisoners suffering under the brutal regime of Lukashenka,” said the head of the European Union Ursula von der Leyen on X.
“Europe continues to call their immediate release,” she added.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski expressed his “most sincere joy”, while Latvian president Edgars Rinkevics described Tikhanovsky’s freedom a “highly anticipated and awaited moment”.
The German Minister of Foreign Affairs, Johann Wadephul, praised the release of Tikhanovsky as a fantastically “good news” in an article by X.
“At the same time, we must not forget the many other prisoners of Bélarus. Lukashenko must finally release them,” he added.
Pavel Latushko, a former Minister of Culture of Belarus who supported the 2020 demonstrations against Lukashenko, also praised the release of Tikhanovsky as “important moment”.
Tikhanovsky, 46, has been imprisoned for over five years.
The popular Youtuber had planned to appear against Lukashenko in the August 2020 presidential election, but was arrested and detained weeks before the vote.
He was sentenced in 2021 to 18 years in prison for “organization of riots” and “encouraged hatred”, then to an additional 18 months for “insubordination”.
Svetlana – A political novice at the time of her husband’s arrest – ran against Lukashenko in her place but lost after what the opposition described as general falsification. She then fled the Belarus.
“It is difficult to describe joy in my heart,” she said in an article on X after the release of her husband.
Among the other 13 freed, the journalist of Radio Liberty Ihar Karnei, arrested in 2023 and imprisoned for having participated in an “extremist” organization.
Andrei Shauliuha / AFP via Getty Images 
They have now been transferred from Belarus to Lithuania, where they received “appropriate care,” said Lithuanian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Kestis Budrys.
Although none of the released detainees needed emergency medical help, “one of them needed emergency medical care” because “they were imprisoned in difficult conditions,” Budrys told the TLR public broadcaster, without developing.
Swedish-Bilarus citizen Galina Krasnyanskaya, arrested in 2023 for having allegedly supported Ukraine, was also released, said Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Krister.
The Bélarus, governed by Lukashenko since 1994, prohibited all the real opposition parties. It is the only European country to maintain the death penalty as a punishment.
The Eastern European country has even more than 1,000 political prisoners in its prisons, according to the Belarusian group of human rights, Viasna.
Since his entry into office, Trump has embarked on direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, ending his predecessor’s policy to isolate the Russian president.
The two nuclear powers have since worked to normalize diplomatic ties, which for years have lingered at their lowest point since the Cold War.
In February, an American citizen who had been detained In Bélarus, there was one of the three prisoners released in police custody. Chris Smith, deputy deputy assistant secretary of Eastern Europe, said at the time that the agreement had been negotiated by the Belarusian authorities and had pointed out Lukashenko’s desire to have a stronger relationship with the United States
And in January, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announcement That the Belarus had “unilaterally” released an American woman from detention.
Tikhanovsky was detained for years, and in 2023, his wife was informed that he was “deceased”.
In a video published by Viasna on Saturday, he appeared almost unrecognizable, with the shaved head and his face emaciated.
A charismatic activist, Tikhanovsky drew the authorities for describing Lukashenko as a “cockroach” and his country slogan was “stopped the cockroach”.
Lukashenko won a landslide victory in the 2020 elections, a result that sparked massive opposition demonstrations that the authorities have violently suppressed.
The Belarusian autocrat claimed a record of the seventh term in the elections earlier this year that the observers rejected as a farce.
