Byalyatsky, founder of the human rights organization Vyasna, served a ten-year sentence in a penal colony, convicted of, among other things, smuggling and financing political protests. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, jointly with the Russian organization Memorial and the Ukrainian CCL.
The Nobel Prize was a recognition of our activity, our ambitions that have not yet been realized, therefore the struggle continues, says Byalyatski in a television interview with opposition Belsat after arriving in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
Kolesnikova led the mass protests against President Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus in 2020, along with Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, among others. She was sentenced to eleven years in prison in 2021 despite her denials.
"I think of those who are not yet free, and I really look forward to the moment when we can all embrace each other," she says in a video interview free in Ukraine.
Total 123 prisoners
Viktor Babariko is another opposition figure to be released. The former banker was a potential presidential candidate in 2020, but was arrested and sentenced the following year to 14 years in prison for bribery and tax crimes.
A total of 123 prisoners are being pardoned by Lukashenko. At least 114 of them have been transported to Ukraine, according to Ukrainian authorities.
In addition to Belarusians, people from Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Japan and the United States are among those released.
Met Lukashenko
The US envoy to Belarus, John Coale, announced earlier on Saturday that the country is lifting sanctions on Belarusian potash.
According to Coale, who met with Lukashenko in Minsk on Friday and Saturday, the goal is to normalize relations between the countries.
"We are lifting sanctions and releasing prisoners. We are constantly talking to each other," Coale told reporters, according to the state-controlled Belta news agency.
Belarus is a close ally of Russia. The country is subject to extensive sanctions from the West, citing systematic human rights violations and ceding its territory to the Kremlin when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Political prisoners have also been released in batches earlier this year, including around 50 in September. In total, over 1,000 people are estimated to remain imprisoned on political grounds.
