Belarus frees 25 prisoners in exchange for the US lifting some sanctions, envoy says

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — The U.S. special envoy for Belarus said Wednesday that the country’s authorities have agreed to release 25 prisoners in exchange for the lifting of U.S. sanctions against two Belarusian companies.

John Coale, President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Belarus, made the statement a day after meeting Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who pushed for the remaining U.S. sanctions against his country to be lifted.

“25 prisoners are free today!” Coale said on X, adding that “President Trump’s commitment to direct diplomacy delivers results.” He also thanked Lukashenko and authorities in Lithuania, a European Union member that neighbors Belarus, for their support.

“We will continue to improve U.S.-Belarus relations and are working to secure the release of more people in the very near future,” Coale said. “We are not finished!”

Speaking to reporters in Minsk, Coale said as part of what he called “an interim deal” and “as a show of good will,” Belarus will release 25 people in exchange for the U.S. lifting sanctions from two Belarusian companies, Lakokraska and Bellesbumprom.

He added that further release of prisoners and the lifting of more sanctions will follow later after all details are agreed upon.

Belarusian authorities haven’t announced any details of the prisoners’ release yet.

Lukashenko has governed the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades, and the country has been sanctioned repeatedly by Western countries — both for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Since Trump returned to the White House for his second term, Lukashenko has released hundreds of political prisoners in a series of U.S.-mediated deals that also lifted some U.S. sanctions.

Belarusian opposition leader-in-exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya welcomed the prisoners’ release, but noted that many others remain in custody.

“This is an important step, but only a step,” Tsikhanouskaya told The Associated Press. “Many political prisoners remain behind bars.”

For Lukashenko, “people are bargaining chips — something he can trade and then replace with new hostages,” she said, adding that “we have to break this vicious cycle of repression.”

Belarus still has 887 political prisoners, according to the Viasna human rights center.

Tsikhanouskaya, who met the freed prisoners in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, said the prisoners’ release shouldn’t be seen as a sign of political change in Belarus.

“Repressions are continuing,” she said. “Ultimately, every political prisoner must be released.”

As part of a deal in March that Washington helped broker, Lukashenko ordered the release of 250 political prisoners, while the U.S. agreed to lift sanctions on two Belarusian state banks and the country’s Finance Ministry, and to remove the top Belarusian potash producers from a sanctions list.

Another deal in April released prominent journalist Andrzej Poczobut in a swap with Poland that saw a total of 10 people freed.

Lukashenko’s rule was challenged after a 2020 presidential election, when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest a vote they viewed as rigged. In an ensuing crackdown, tens of thousands were detained, with many beaten by police. Prominent opposition figures fled the country or were imprisoned.

Five years after the mass demonstrations, Lukashenko won a seventh term last year in an election that the opposition called a farce.

Among the prisoners released Wednesday were media managers Andrei Aliaksandrau and Liudmila Chekina and journalists Dzmitry Navazhylau and Kiryl Pazniak.

Pavel Sapelka, a lawyer with the Viasna human rights center, said that Belarusian authorities confiscated passports of some of those released in what he said amounted to “forced deportation.”

“Lukashenko’s regime is simply throwing dissidents out, getting rid of dangerous voices inside the country,” Sapelka told the AP.