Belarus has released 52 prisoners of various nationalities, after a visit by a US delegation to Minsk, in Alexander Lukashenko’s latest attempt to balance ties between Russia and the west.
Thursday’s prisoner release was one of the biggest of Lukashenko’s authoritarian rule, part of his effort to mend relations with Washington and secure sanctions relief after years of isolation.
Those freed included 14 foreign nationals – one Briton, one French national, six Lithuanians, two Latvians, two Poles, and two Germans – as well as a number of Belarusian political prisoners.
A Belarusian opposition Telegram channel said the released British national was 52-year-old Julia Fenner, who was detained in March 2024 while entering Belarus and later sentenced to seven years in prison for participating in the 2020 anti-government protests.
Independent Belarusian media reported that Fenner holds Belarusian and British citizenship and previously worked at the British embassy in Minsk. The Guardian could not independently confirm her release.
In return for Lukashenko’s prisoner release, the US will ease sanctions on Belarus’s national airline, Belavia, allowing it to service and buy parts for its Boeing aircraft fleet, a spokesperson for the US embassy in Vilnius said.
Belarus state agencies also cited John Coale, a lawyer who headed the American delegation, as saying that Donald Trump had told Lukashenko that Washington wants to reopen its embassy in Minsk.
Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko meets with US presidential envoy John Coale. Photograph: Belarus President Press Service/EPA
Since Trump took office, Lukashenko has repeatedly met with US officials and has spoken to the US president over the phone.
A Trump administration official said that the US welcomed the release of political prisoners by Belarus and said that the White House would continue to seek to free the nearly 1,300 remaining political prisoners in Belarus.
The official also said that the US delegation to Minsk headed by Coale would address regional security issues, including ending the weaponisation of illegal migration from Belarus into neighbouring Nato countries.
Observers say Lukashenko is trying to capitalise on Trump’s desire to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, casting himself as a mediator between Washington and Moscow while at the same time seeking to shore up his own power amid his fears that Belarus’s sovereignty could be swallowed by an increasingly assertive Russia.
“Our main task is to stand with Trump and help him in his mission to establish peace,” Lukashenko said on Thursday, referencing Trump’s claim that he has solved six or seven world conflicts.
Trump, for his part, has described the Belarusian leader as “highly respected,” in a sharp break with European efforts to isolate Lukashenko after his brutal crackdown on dissent following the widely condemned 2020 presidential election.
In June, a visit to Minsk by US presidential envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg was followed by the release of Syarhei Tsikhanouski, a prominent opposition figure jailed for nearly five years after mobilising anti-Lukashenko protests before 2020’s poll.
While Belarusian opposition figures in exile have welcomed the recent wave of political releases, they argue that Lukashenko remains firmly aligned with Moscow and is using the political prisoners as a bargaining chip to burnish his international standing and push for sanctions relief to shore up an economy weakened in recent years.
“Today, POTUS & his team secured the release of 52 political hostages in Belarus – 38 Belarusians & 14 foreigners … We are grateful for the strong US leadership … 1,200+ hostages remain – all must be released,” Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the wife of Syarhei, who leads the opposition movement abroad, wrote on X.
skip past newsletter promotion
Sign up to This is Europe
The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans – from identity to economics to the environment
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
after newsletter promotion
According to the Belarusian Nasha Niva newspaper, those pardoned on Thursday included former Belarusian presidential candidate in the 2010 elections Nikolai Statkevich, philosopher Vladimir Matskevich, and several independent journalists.
Many prominent critics of Lukashenko’s decades-long rule remain behind bars, including opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova and human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski, co-winner of the 2022 Nobel peace prize.
Syarhei Tsikhanouski’s release came hours after Donald Trump’s special envoy met Alexander Lukashenko. Photograph: Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya/X/Reuters
Even as it frees groups of detainees, the regime continues its crackdown on dissent, handing down prison sentences over something as minor as past social media posts critical of the government.
Just this week, a Russian prisoner held on what critics described as politically motivated charges died in custody under unclear circumstances.
The prisoner release comes at a highly tense moment for the region, just a day after Poland shot down suspected Russian drones over its territory and on the eve of the Zapad joint military exercises between the Russian and Belarusian armed forces.
Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said some of the drones that violated Polish airspace had, for the first time, entered from Belarusian territory. Seeking to deflect blame, Belarus’s chief of the general staff, Pavel Muraveiko, claimed Minsk had warned Poland and Lithuania of drones approaching their borders and had even shot some down.
Despite Belarus’s continued support for Russia’s war, the US move to ease sanctions on Thursday suggests Lukashenko is succeeding in manoeuvring between both sides – a tangible win for him, analysts said.
“I don’t recall a more schizophrenic moment in Belarusian foreign policy,” said Artyom Shraibman, a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre. “On 10 September, Russian drones crossed the western border in one direction, while a US delegation crossed in the other, bringing news of aviation sanctions being lifted in exchange for political prisoners.”
