Freed Belarus protest leader Maria Kolesnikova says she doesn't 'regret anything'

BELARUSIAN PROTEST LEADER Maria Kolesnikova said she did not regret anything as she spoke to reporters today after her surprise release brokered by the United States.

The 43-year-old was released yesterday along with 122 other prisoners after more than five years in prison for opposing Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko.

“I don’t regret anything. I believe that there are times when we face such questions, difficult questions, and we must make difficult choices,” she said during a news conference in Ukraine, where she was taken after her release.

“I made this difficult choice very easily because I was and remain absolutely confident that I supported the right idea.”

Those freed also included Viktor Babariko, a former banker who sought to run against Lukashenko in the 2020 election but was arrested.

At the press conference, Babariko, 62, said detainees in Belarus had access only to state-controlled media and therefore had no objective view of the war between Russia and Ukraine.

“You only know what they show on Belarusian television. And they show almost nothing,” he said.

The 123 people, who included prominent opposition figures and activists, were freed under a deal with US President Donald Trump that includes Washington lifting US economic sanctions on Minsk.

A total of 114 of those freed were transferred to Ukraine.

Kolesnikova thanked the United States, Ukraine and also Lukashenko himself.

A trained musician, she was one of the leaders of protests against Lukashenko’s disputed re-election in 2020.

In September that year, she was abducted by Belarusian security services and taken to the Ukrainian border for expulsion.

She tore up her passport, making her deportation legally impossible and turning herself into a symbol of resistance against the president, in power since 1994.

Babariko lost a lot of weight in prison and said his priority now was his health.

But he added: “Belarus needs me, I will try to do something.”

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He urged people not to forget the more than 1,200 political prisoners who rights group Viasna says are still held in Belarus, including his own son, Eduard.

“We must not forget those whose surnames we have never heard… That would be a great betrayal.”

Nobel Peace Prize winner

Meanwhile, hours after being freed from a Belarusian prison under a US deal, dissident Ales Bialiatski vowed to continue his fight for democracy from exile and told news agency AFP his Nobel Peace Prize saved him from the worst treatment in prison.

Imprisoned in 2021 and kept largely in isolation since 2023, Bialiatski also called on the EU to enter talks with the Minsk regime to free hundreds of other political prisoners.

Bialiatski – who spent decades documenting rights abuses in Belarus and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 while in custody – spoke to AFP today in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius following his transfer there after his release.

A day earlier, the 63-year-old was woken up in prison at 4:00am, with security services bandaging his eyes and driving him across the country to the Lithuanian border.

He was one of more than 120 political prisoners freed under the deal.

The Nobel prize – which he said he shares with the whole of Belarusian civil society – served as some protection for him in prison.

“Although I went through all the difficulties that Belarusian political prisoners go through – isolation cells and constant humiliation… the prize saved me from much worse unpleasant things that other colleagues went through,” he said.

“They understood that this person has some kind of prize and we can’t just beat him,” he added, laughing.

Bialiatski warned that while the regime has freed some political prisoners this year, it keeps arresting others.

He was freed but was forced into exile under the deal as Washington intensifies talks with Minsk.

He called on the EU to also enter talks with the reclusive regime, led by President Alexander Lukashenko since 1994.

“For European society and other democracies, we have to stop repression in Belarus,” he said. “The repression is being done by the regime – who else are you meant to talk to if not the regime?”

But he added that Europe should talk to the Lukashenko regime “from a position of pressure and force” as “this is the only language that the Belarusian regime understands.”

Bialiatski – who has worked on human rights in Belarus since the Soviet era – vowed “not to put my hands down” and continue his work from exile.