TALLINN, Estonia, June 22, (AP): Belarus has freed Siarhei Tsikhanouski, a key dissident figure and the husband of exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, and 13 others following a rare visit by a senior US official, Tsikhanouskaya’s team announced on Saturday. Tsikhanouski, a popular blogger and activist who was imprisoned 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 in Minsk. Keith Kellogg became the highest-ranking US official in years to visit Belarus, Moscow's close and dependent ally. A video published on Tsikhanouskaya's official Telegram account showed Tsikhanouski disembarking from a white minibus, smiling broadly despite his shaved head and emaciated frame.

He pulled his wife 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, known for his anti-Lukashenko slogan "stop the cockroach,” was jailed after announcing plans to challenge the strongman 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. Tens of thousands of people poured into the streets in the aftermath of the August 2020 vote, in the largest protests in the country's history. In the ensuing crackdown, more than 35,000 people were detained, with many beaten by police.

Prominent opposition figures either fled the country or were imprisoned. Tsikhanouski was sentenced to 19 1/2 years in prison on charges of organizing mass riots. Lukashenko has since extended his rule for a seventh term following a January 2025 election that the opposition called a farce. Since July 2024, he has pardoned nearly 300 people, including imprisoned U.S. citizens, seeking to mend ties with the West.