Belarus frees jailed opposition leader, more than a dozen others after visit from U.S. envoy

Belarus freed top opposition figure Sergei Tikhanovsky and more than a dozen other political prisoners Saturday following an appeal from the White House, Tsikhanouskaya's team announced on Saturday, a sign of warming ties between Washington and Belarus-ally Moscow.

The release came just hours after retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, President Trump's special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, met Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk, the highest-profile visit of a U.S. official to the authoritarian state in years.

Tikhanovsky's wife Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who took the mantle of the opposition movement after her husband's jailing, thanked President Trump directly for brokering the deal.