The Polish journalist and activist Andrzej Poczobut, who also holds Belarusian nationality, has returned to Belarus for the first time since being released in a prisoner exchange agreed upon between Warsaw and Minsk.
With this trip, he has fulfilled his commitment to return to Belarus, despite the uncertainties about a possible new detention, after having been sentenced to eight years in prison in the country for alleged damage to national security and incitement to hatred, before being included in a detainee swap.
In a message shared on social media, the activist has posted a photograph in which he appears on the other side of the border, accompanied by the text "on the banks of the Niemen," referring to the river that flows near the border limit, now in Belarusian territory.
Poczobut was released last April by the Belarusian authorities and, upon his arrival in Poland, was welcomed by the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, who revealed the efforts made by Warsaw to secure his release.
He was part of the group of five prisoners that Belarus and Poland mutually handed over at a point on the border. Among the released individuals was also the Russian archaeologist Alexander Butiagin, arrested in Poland since December 2025 at the request of the Ukrainian authorities.
Detained on a dozen occasions and considered a political prisoner by the government of Alexander Lukashenko due to the persecution suffered for decades for his journalistic work, Poczobut was awarded the 2025 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, granted annually by the European Parliament.