{As the bus crossed into Lithuania, Mikola Dziadok, newly freed after five punishing years behind bars in Belarus, shouted: “God bless America.”
{It was an unlikely cry from a dedicated anarchist and reporter who had spent almost half of his adult life incarcerated for resisting Alexander Lukashenko’s regime.
“I was so happy. At that moment, I admired the whole US government. Just for that brief period, naturally,” he said with a smile in a Vilnius cafe, his hair still cropped from prison.
The 37-year-old activist, was among over fifty detainees freed and sent to exile in the adjacent Baltic state in recent weeks – a significant amnesty in Belarus’s post-Soviet history, and the recent maneuver by Lukashenko, the shrewd authoritarian who has governed the country for many years and strong supporter of Vladimir Putin, in his effort to improve relations with the Trump administration.
{But the prison release, which came after previous amnesties, including that of the opposition leader Syarhei Tsikhanouski in June, has come with strings attached. And Lukashenko’s prisons remain packed, with 1,168 political detainees still behind bars, according to the human rights group Viasna – a figure that includes its leader, the Nobel peace prize laureate Ales Bialiatski.
{Through a series of political gestures, the Belarusian leader has guided Belarus out of prolonged international seclusion that followed his repressive measures at home and backing of the conflict in Ukraine. The US move to lift initial restrictions in following the prisoner release, along with Trump’s hint of a potential encounter with Lukashenko, marked a clear success for a ruler long viewed as an outcast in the international community.
{But observers now say Lukashenko is wielding political prisoners as negotiation tools – trading their freedom for international concessions while maintaining oppression at home.
{While welcoming US diplomacy, many of those released said they were fully conscious of the exchange.
“The most important thing is not to substitute the liberation of the nation [from Lukashenko] with the freeing of political prisoners,” said a fellow activist, a middle-aged dissident from the opposition group freed in the identical arrangement.
{In an interview in Vilnius, he stressed that the Belarusian authorities had no plan of relaxing their clampdown on opposition. “Several dozen individuals were released, but then a similar number were detained. Why is this happening? We are freed today, and then Trump will bargain over the next group,” he gestured.
{The over a thousand prisoners of conscience also include a prominent opposition figure, the musician turned opposition leader who refused to leave by destroying her documents at the border. Observers say releasing everyone simultaneously would strip Lukashenko of bargaining power.
{The oppression that filled those cells started during the highly contested national vote of August 2020, when hundreds of thousands of citizens took to the streets to demand Lukashenko’s exit.
Dziadok and Sparysh were swept up in that wave of arrests, alongside reporters, activists and ordinary citizens accused of “extremism” for a social media interaction, a donation or a critical comment on the internet.
{On a infrequent trip by international journalists to the capital, a news outlet recently attended the trial of Ihar Ilyash, arrested in October 2024.
His wife, also a journalist Katsiaryna Bakhvalava, is already serving an eight-year sentence for “betrayal of state” after covering the mass demonstrations. Standing motionless inside a secure enclosure, the defendant was given to a multi-year term on extremism charges for writings opposing Lukashenko.
Former detainees say they do not have to guess to envision his future: long years of seclusion and brutal treatment in what many call a detention network more brutal than Russia’s.
“The nation serves as a laboratory for oppression. It begins locally … then the Russian leader does it a few years later,” said Dziadok. He recounted gruelling conditions inside Belarus’s prisons, where guards had created their own disturbing terms for torture.
“One method is called ‘disco’ – when they beat you with a stun gun while you are cuffed,” he said. “The ‘quick charge’ is a maximum voltage application. And the ‘lawyer’ is when officers assault you with batons. You say, ‘I need legal representation’. They respond, ‘this is your advocate’.”
Survivors of the system said the torment was as much psychological as physical. “It’s impossible to fully comprehend it unless you have been through it,” said Sparysh, fidgeting with a pen in his hands as he spoke. During the discussion, he paused, seeming too ill to proceed before declaring he could go on.
Sparysh remembered how detainees were routinely thrown into shizo – small isolation rooms – for trivial offences such as an open collar or dirty footwear.
Much of the cruelty, however, was outsourced. A practice based on historical methods set violent criminals against political detainees. “Ordinary criminals are employed to bully political prisoners,” Dziadok said.
The method is also applied to isolate them, ex-detainees said. Regular prisoners were instructed not to speak to dissidents, and those who disobeyed risked swift punishment. “It’s surreal … picture being in a dormitory with 60 people and no one speaks to you,” said Dziadok.
Inmates also face medical neglect. “Medical care is withheld until you collapse,” he said of Hrodna prison in the country's west, where he spent most of his sentence.
He added that the implication from the officers was unmistakable: “Increased mortality here, the improved the condition in the nation will be.”
He recounted: “In my jail alone, several inmates died. Two due to sickness that could have been avoided. One committed suicide. And one died from assault by a fellow inmate.”
Included was the 57-year-old artist Ales Pushkin, a illustrator who once deposited a wheelbarrow of waste outside the government building. “I was housed in a adjacent room, and witnessed how it occurred,” the journalist said of the artist, who passed away in recent years as a consequence of sickness.
{Some of the more grim accounts from those newly freed recount how detainees with politically charged tattoos were targeted – made to erase them personally or restrained while officers did it for them.
The leader says Belarus treats inmates “appropriately”, adding that “prison is not a resort”.
The two activists are now adjusting to life abroad. Their national documents were confiscated by the authorities as part of the release, leaving them without documents.
Staying politically relevant from outside the country, they admit, may be challenging.
Some individuals, leaving the country was not a choice. Upon arrival to collect the freed prisoners from the Lithuanian border, an individual was absent.
An opposition veteran, 69, a long-time dissident and former general frequently imprisoned for challenging
