Maryna Adamovich: The head of the prison hospital said that if I wanted, I could take Mikalai home
In an interview with LRT.lt, Maryna Adamovich shared how she learned about her husband's release, the politician's current condition, and how his rehabilitation is progressing.
Searched for him everywhere
On September 11, 2025, Mikalai Statkevich — one of the most well-known representatives of the Belarusian opposition and a former presidential candidate — was released along with 51 other prisoners after a meeting between US Presidential Representative John Kohle and Alexander Lukashenka.
However, during an attempt at forced deportation, Statkevich refused to leave the country's territory. For several hours, the politician could be observed through surveillance cameras installed at the "Kamenny Loh" border crossing on the Belarusian side.
A few hours later, he was taken in an unknown direction by people in civilian clothes. After this, communication with Mikalai was lost again, and his exact whereabouts remained unknown until the evening of February 19.
"I searched for Mikalai everywhere and by all available means — even resorting to court. The court ruled that my demands to be informed of Mikalai's whereabouts were unfounded. And then I had one method left — an 'experimental' one. I sent a parcel to Hlybokaye. A week later, it was picked up from the post office. As it's now clear, it was picked up when Mikalai had already been gone from there for almost a month.
That is, my hope and cautious joy a few days ago were only connected to Mikalai being 'in his old place'. And my only wish was to find him and help him in any way I could. But the world returned him to me himself — alive and home," M. Adamovich wrote on Facebook.
Without documents and without understanding his status
Mikalai Statkevich returned home on February 19, but, according to his wife, he still remains without official papers, which hinders full-fledged treatment.
"Mikalai found himself home on the evening of February 19. Without a passport, without any documents, without an epicrisis or any medical discharge summary, without an understanding of his status. This creates major problems for promptly providing medical assistance. I can only say that today he looks and feels better than at the moment I saw him in the prison hospital for the first time in 3 years and almost 8 months," M. Adamovich recounts.
She notes that Mikalai's serious health problems began in January — when he was urgently hospitalized.
A stroke, or more precisely a brain infarction, occurred on January 21. According to Mikalai, that same evening he was brought to a hospital in Minsk. Mikalai is very grateful to the doctors for their professionalism. Today, most of his body's functions have been restored," says his wife.
"But he said that from the moment he was returned to the colony after an attempt to take him out of Belarus, they stopped giving him critically needed medications or replaced them with, to put it mildly, ineffective ones. For example, instead of 'Rivaroxaban' (Xarelto), they gave him ordinary aspirin. Draw your own conclusions. All this time I was looking for him, partly so that he wouldn't be without the necessary medications that I was sending to the colony," she adds.
Home, calm, walks
According to M. Adamovich, the rehabilitation process is currently complicated by a number of problems.
"Today we have nothing to rely on: no understanding of his legal status or the possibility to leave for rehabilitation, no medical documents, not even a passport. Therefore, for now, it's home, calm, walks, quality food, and the most necessary medications as advised by the doctor who treated him," recounts the politician's wife.
She admits that due to speech problems, recovery is not easy, and communication is currently difficult.
"It's still very difficult, especially considering how much important things we need to say to each other over those almost six years, and how important it is for Mikalai to speak out and be heard, and for me — to hear him," says Maryna.
Speaking about the first days after returning home, the politician's wife notes that despite what they have been through, the main feeling now is joy and a sense of unity.
"It's a very joyful feeling, especially when you are convinced again and again that nothing has changed, that you are still together and looking in the same direction, and that these almost six years feel as if they never happened — it seems as if you were together all this time," she emphasizes.
Application to the chief physician
Maryna learned about her husband's release suddenly — everything was decided literally in a matter of minutes.
"Exactly five minutes before it happened, when the head of the prison hospital said that if I wanted, I could take Mikalai home so he could continue recovering in home conditions. I asked: 'What do I need to do for that?' It turned out to be — an application addressed to the head of the hospital requesting to 'release him for rehabilitation in home conditions'," the woman emphasizes.
"It's that simple. You can take your husband from a prison hospital, a restricted facility, with an application addressed to the chief doctor, or rather — the head of the hospital. Anyway, I am already familiar with the official version of his release," she adds.
Speaking about the events at the border and his refusal to leave Belarus, Maryna emphasizes that she understood what his choice would be, and she accepted it.
"I had no doubt that he would make exactly that decision when faced with an attempt at deportation, and I was anxious and scared. But I have supported and will always support him. 'Human values are worth a person being ready to pay for them' — this is his conviction. He was ready for any price. Now we are together, and we will cope," concludes the politician's wife, Maryna Adamovich.
Mikalai Statkevich has repeatedly faced repression. In 2004, he was arrested after participating in a protest against a referendum that allowed Alexander Lukashenka to run for a third term. At that time, the politician was sentenced to three years of probation.
In 2010, after the presidential elections and the dispersal of a demonstration in Minsk, Statkevich was detained again. In 2011, a court sentenced him to six years in a high-security penal colony. He was released only in August 2015, after the authorities announced his pardon, although the politician himself had not signed a pardon request.
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