Video alone, in “No Man's Land”, a political prisoner released by Lukașenko refused to leave Belarus: “This shows how cruel the regime”
Mikola Statkevich on Belarus – Lithuania border. Photo: x / sviatlana tsikhanouskaya
In the neutral area of the border between Belarus and Lithuania, an elderly man was left alone. This is the opposition politician Mikola Statkevich, the most prominent figure between the 52 political prisoners issued yesterday by the leader Belarus Alexander Lukașenko, at the request of US President Donald Trump, according to Reuters.
He was the only one who refused to cross the border in the neighboring Lithuania, where the detailed prisoners were subsequently greeted by American officials and opposition leaders at the US Embassy in Vilnius.
We do not know clearly why Strokevich, 69, refused to leave. The opposition of existent says that the political prisoners should have the right to stay in Belarus, instead of being subjected to something that is equivalent to a forced deportations.
“This is a real drama, because Mikola Statkevich has absolutely refused to leave Belarus and they are trying to force him to leave,” Franak Viacorka told Reuters.
“This shows how cruel the regime is, because they did not give people the chance to choose whether to stay or leave,” he added.
The leader of the opposition Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya wrote on X that Statkevich “would have returned to Belarus”.
She said that he is “a true hero of our people” and hated “power, safety and freedom.”
The images caught by a border web camera showed Statkevich, dressed in black, sitting down a wall in “No Man's Land”, the neutral area of the border points of the two countries. But in the subsequent images, it has disappeared, apparently in Belarus.
Belarus: CCTV Images of Mikalai Statkevich Setting in the No Man's Land Between the Belarusian and Lithuanian Border Posts, Refusing to Walk to the Lithuania Side and Go into exile.
After TWO Hours He Was Allowed Back into Belarus. https://t.co/xanpyftshn pic.twitter.com/beazvwr17
– Thomas van lingo (@thomasvling) September 11, 2025
“I did not confirm his identity, I did not see his documents. But recently he returned to the Border crossing point in Belarus, now we do not see him anymore. He has not entered Lithuania,” a Lithuanian border police spokesman told Reuters.
There is a precedent for Belaruși dissidents who refuse to be expelled. In 2020, the leader of the pro-democracy protests Maria Kalesnikava became a hero of the opposition when he broke his passport to small pieces to prevent security officers from forcing her from crossing the border to Ukraine. She was not among those released on Thursday and stays in prison.
Statkevich, who applied against Lukașenko in the 2010 elections, was arrested in May 2020 and sentenced in 2021 to 14 years in a maximum security prison for “organization of riots”.
The human rights group Viasna states that it became ill of pneumonia in 2022, suffered five periods of isolation and was deprived at different times of his right to receive visits and packages.
