TALLINN – Belarus has released Siarhei Tsikhanouski, a prominent dissident and the husband of exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, following a visit by a senior official from the Trump administration, Tsikhanouskaya’s team reported on Saturday.

They stated that Tsikhanouski, a well-known blogger and activist, had reached Vilnius, Lithuania, with 13 other political prisoners. His release occurred shortly after Belarusian authorities announced that the nation’s authoritarian President, Alexander Lukashenko, had met with Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg in Minsk.

Tsikhanouski was imprisoned in 2020 after declaring his intention to run against Lukashenko in that year’s election. After his arrest, his wife stood in his place, attracting significant public support across the nation. The official election results gave Lukashenko his sixth term, but these results were condemned by the opposition and the West as fraudulent.

Amid unprecedented protests that 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.