Belarusian street protest leader Maria Kolesnikova and Nobel Prize winner Ales Bialiatski walked free on Saturday with 121 other political prisoners, released in an unprecedented US-brokered deal, rights groups announced.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has locked up thousands of his opponents, critics and protestors since an election in 2020 that rights groups widely said was rigged and triggered weeks of unprecedented protests across the country.