Exiled political opposition figure from Belarus fears for her husband's life amid death of Navalny

Now in exile from Belarus, opposition figure Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya says the announced death of political prisoner Alexei Navalny resonates with her, as she doesn't know if her husband, another political prisoner, is alive.

Hours after Alexei Navalny, a political activist imprisoned in Russia, was declared dead on Friday, world leaders began pointing blame towards Vladimir Putin.

One of those leaders was Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, an exiled political activist and disputed president-elect of Belarus, who released a statement on X that said she has "no doubt" that Navalny was "purposefully killed by the Putin regime."

"In Belarus right now, dozens of political prisoners are held incommunicado by a regime that is allied with Putin," she said on X. "I call on the global community to take decisive action to save their lives."

One of the political prisoners Tsikhanouskaya is referring to is her husband, Siarhei Tsikhanouski, a 44-year-old political activist and writer who was arrested in Belarus back in 2020, after announcing plans to run against the country's authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko in the presidential elections that year.

After her husband's arrest, Tsikhanouskaya decided to run in his place for the 2020 election in Belarus. According to her, she received the majority of votes, but an allegedly fraudulent election allowed Lukashenko to maintain power.

Now in exile from Belarus, Tsikhanouskaya says the announced death of Navalny resonates with her, as she doesn't know if her husband is alive.

"I don't know what's going on with him. And the same with some other political prisoners," she told CTV News Channel's Power Play during an interview on Friday.