Latvian Citizen Released From Prison In Belarus: Lost 26 Kilograms In Three Years
13- 24.06.2025, 14:08
- 18,312
Story by Dmitry Mikhailov.
In three years, he lost 26 kilograms and turned completely gray - this is how political prisoner, Latvian citizen Dmitri Mihailov returned to Riga from prison in Belarus. His crime was criticizing the regime on the Internet. He was arrested a year and a half after the comments, tried and given four years in prison, lsm.lv reports.
The four-year sentence was to end on November 19 - the day after Latvia's Independence Day and two days before Dimitri's 48th birthday. He looks older. Completely gray-haired. And at that moment, when he was being taken with a bag over his head and handcuffed for handover to Latvia, he thought he was being taken to be shot.
"Got in the car ... and I had only one thought - to be shot in the head. To be shot at once," he said.
But the first trip ended in Minsk. "There were 14 of us, because Sergei Tikhanovsky was kept separately. Two women also separately. And one Japanese man... - how did he get there? We were brought to the forest near the border. And the Americans had already prepared a minibus there. The American says - you are safe... It was an emotional moment for all of us..." -
He expressed gratitude to U.S. Special Representative Keith Kellogg and his assistant John Cole. He also thanked Lithuania for hosting them. And his biggest thanks went to Latvian Ambassador to Lithuania Salvea Silkalna. "If I could, I would like to meet and give flowers to Consul Cynthia [Paurai] from Vitebsk. She came to every court session! It's 300 kilometers one way," he said.
Before the trial, Dzmitry owned several stores in Minsk. Business was going well. He admitted: "I had rose-colored glasses. Minsk is a super city. Everything was good. That picture was beautiful. I saw the potential there. A city of two million people... There were no complaints from the KGB. Until those comments of mine."
At the time of the COVID pandemic, some 130 business owners in Signal formed a closed group to fight for lower rents. Simultaneously, protests began in Minsk, videos of which hit the Internet. "And I started commenting on them," Dmitry said, clarifying that he didn't write any messages when he was in Belarus. "I asked the judge - I am a citizen of the European Union, being in Latvia, commented on something in a closed group. I left after a year and a half. I was arrested."
Dmitry emphasizes that such are just laws. If there are more than two people in a communication group, it is already a mass media outlet. The current regime is not criticized there. Anyone planning a trip to Belarus should know this. He said: "All citizens of Latvia who think they can go there - fine, go. But know this: if something happens by accident... if your phone contains correspondence with a relative in Latvia about the authorities, even just a phrase that you don't need to lift sanctions... - six years in prison.
In prison, he missed his son and daughter most of all. When he was arrested, his son was 18, his daughter was nine. And he missed Latvian food. "The only country that produces good rye bread is Latvia. I missed Serenāde from Laimas. Kārums cheesecakes. And brine. I lost 26 pounds there and aged 10 years, but I lost five years on Friday when they carried me in with that bag over my head," he said.
Dmitri hadn't heard anything about the movie Straume ("Flow") and its success at the Oscars. He wants to see it. And after his son called him two years ago, he learned that Latvian hockey players won bronze at the World Championship.
Dmitri said: "I am Russian, but I am Latvian. I have no other homeland, all my relatives are in Latvia, ancestral cemeteries are in Latvia, I love Latvia... what feelings can I have. I read in the comments on Delfi - what kind of Latvians they are, what kind of Latvians they are... I don't think we need to be so divided. I love Latvia, I have no other homeland."
Now he needs to look for a job, as his companies no longer exist. But first he will go to visit his father.
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