Nobel Peace Prize Goes to Ukraine, Russia, Belarus Activists

Human rights activist Ales Bialiatski, founder of the organisation Viasna (Belarus), receives the 2020 Right Livelihood Award at the digital award ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 3, 2020. Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency/via Reuters

OSLO—Jailed Belarusian activist Ales Byalyatski, Russian rights group Memorial, and Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

The award, the first peace prize since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, has echoes of the Cold War era, when prominent Soviet dissidents such as Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn won Nobels for peace or literature.