Poczobut is currently serving an eight-year sentence in a Belarusian labor camp. He was arrested in 2021 as part of a crackdown on the Union of Poles (ZPB), an organization representing ethnic Poles in Belarus.

His defense of the Polish minority in Belarus and articles he had written about the 2020 protests over a presidential election widely held as rigged, as well as his description of the Soviet Union’s 1939 invasion of Poland as “aggression” resulted in a conviction for inciting hatred and undermining national security.

His case has come to symbolize Poland’s opposition to Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko regime.

Poczobut was not included in the biggest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War on August 1, which saw 16 people freed from detention in Russia and Belarus. Speculation was rife that Poczobut was not released because he had not agreed to leaving Belarus afterwards.

On August 12, Poland’s Rzeczpospolita daily reported that the ZPB’s president, Andżelika Borys had persuaded Poczobut to leave Belarus after being released.

“I immediately traveled to Warsaw and passed this information on to President Andrzej Duda,” the paper quoted her as saying. “I asked for negotiations for Poczobut's release.”

Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in an email to TVP World that it is “constantly engaged” in activities aimed at securing Poczobut’s release and that the issue is raised regularly in bilateral talks as well as though “other classified channels.”