February 20, Pozirk. Opposition politician Mikałaj Statkievič’s relatives requested that he be released home after his recent illness and medical treatment, and Alaksandar Łukašenka granted their request, his spokeswoman Natalla Eijsmant has told Russia’s RIA Novosti.
The Belarusian ruler decided to pardon Statkievič a long time ago, she said, referring to the liberation of 52 Belarusian dissidents in September 2025 as part of Łukašenka’s deal with Washington. All freed people were taken to Lithuania, except for Statkievič, who refused to leave Belarus and remained at the Belarusian-Lithuanian border crossing for several hours, as confirmed by CCTV footage.
In November 2025, the interior ministry informed his family members that he was taken back to prison to serve his original 14-year sentence.
Statkievič refused to go to “paradise” and returned to prison, where he suffered a stroke later, Ejsmant said. The politician was hospitalized after Łukašenka was informed of his condition, she added.
The Viasna Human Rights Center reported on Statkievič’s release yesterday, citing his wife Maryna Adamovič.
The politician was arrested ahead of the 2020 presidential election and then sentenced to a lengthy prison term on charges widely seen as politically motivated. In 2022, Belarusian authorities designated him as an “extremist.”
UN officials have repeatedly contacted Minsk regarding the alleged ill-treatment of the politician in prison, including incommunicado detention, and “the devastating effect of this ill-treatment on his health due to his advanced age.”
