Belarusian political prisoner, 69-year-old Mikalai Statkevich, was released, but has health problems.
The Human Rights Centre “Viasna” with reference to his wife Maryna Adamovich informs that Statkevich had a stroke, now he is recovering, but still has problems with speech. “Otherwise, everything is normal. Everything will be fine,” Adamovich wrote, publishing a joint photo with her husband.
Nikolai Statkevich has been in the Belarusian opposition since the 1990s. He was a presidential candidate during the 2010 elections, and after them he received six years in prison for organising protests. He refused to write a petition for clemency, but Alexander Lukashenko released him early in 2015. In May 2020, shortly before the presidential election in Belarus, Statkevich was detained in Minsk. In December 2021, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison on charges of organising mass riots.
In September 2025, Lukashenko released 52 political prisoners, Statkevich among them. On the same day they were deported to Lithuania. However, Statkevich refused to leave Belarus. He stayed in the neutral zone of the Belarusian-Lithuanian border for several hours and refused to leave. Soon, the State Border Guard Service of Lithuania reported that Statkevich had left the neutral zone and returned to Belarus.
Lukashenka later said that Statkevich “was taken to Belarus, not to abandon him. The publication “Nasha Niva” reported, citing a “reliable source,” that Statkevich was sent to the colony in the town of Hlubokoje in Vitsebsk voblast. In the same colony he was serving the term, appointed in December 2021.