Overview
- She accepted in person the 2022 honor recognizing contributions to European unity after being unable to attend while imprisoned.
- Kolesnikova was freed in December alongside dozens of political prisoners under a deal with Washington that lifted fertilizer export sanctions.
- German authorities have granted her political asylum, and she now resides in Berlin.
- She said she spent about two and a half years in solitary confinement with almost three years without outside contact and read more than 700 books in prison.
- A central figure in the 2020 Belarus protests and ally of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, she was convicted in 2021 and given an 11-year sentence after resisting a forced deportation by tearing up her passport at the Ukrainian border.