U.S. special envoy Keith Kellogg met Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk, the highest-profile visit of a U.S. official to the authoritarian state in years.

Siarhei Tsikhanouski and 13 other prisoners have been released from jail and are now free in Lithuania, the neighbouring country's government said.

Belarus has freed Siarhei Tsikhanouski, a key dissident figure and the husband of exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, following a rare visit by a senior U.S. official.