The Polish foreign minister met with his Belarusian counterpart on “neutral ground”—the first such meeting in nearly 10 years
Radosław Sikorski (Photo: Pawel Supernak/EPA)
Relations between Poland and Belarus may improve, thanks to the normalization of border relations and the release of political prisoner Andrzej Poczobut. This was stated in a comment RFM24 the Polish foreign minister said Radosław Sikorski.
The Polish foreign minister confirmed that he met with Belarusian Foreign Minister Maksim Ryzhenkov on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. He noted that during his visit to the UN, he meets with several dozen foreign ministers.
“The UN is neutral territory,” Sikorski said, noting that this makes it possible to meet with representatives of countries with which relations would not otherwise be maintained.
There have likely been no meetings between representatives of the two countries at this level since 2016.
“Right now, the situation at the border is more stable than it was in the past—of course, this is due to the fact that subsequent governments have invested in an effective border fence, but we have also seen the release of political prisoners, including Počobut,” Sikorski commented.
When asked about the course of the meeting and the topics discussed, Sikorsky said that the conversation focused, in particular, on the situation at the border, as well as the security situation in the region. When asked whether he had asked Belarus not to allow Russia to fly drones and launch missiles over its territory, he replied, “Among other things.”
“This is the first, introductory meeting, but meetings are also taking place between other agencies at different levels. We will soon be opening a new embassy building in Minsk. When a neighbor wants to thaw and improve relations, Poland is always the first to be ready for reconciliation,” added the Polish foreign minister.
Belarus is Russia’s key ally in the war against Ukraine, by providing political, military, and logistical support for Russian aggression. At the same time, the regime in Minsk is facilitating hybrid aggression against Europe, in particular by using artificially organized migration flows as a tool of pressure.
When asked whether this means that the Polish government recognizes the regime of Belarus’s dictator Alexander Lukashenko, Sikorsky replied: “As a state, we recognize other states, not governments.”
When asked whether the meeting signaled a normalization of relations with Belarus, he said, “It’s like a snowdrop that can bloom if the weather is right.”
INFORMATION
Andrzej Pochobut is a Polish-Belarusian journalist and activist for the Polish minority in Belarus who was sentenced in 2023 to eight years in prison on various charges. Human rights activists and Polish authorities considered the charges to be politically motivated. On April 28, 2026, he was released as part of a prisoner exchange between Belarus and Poland.
Poland and the European Union suspected Lukashenko’s regime of organizing an influx of migrants to the Polish-Belarusian border with the aim of exerting hybrid pressure.The talks between Sikorsky and Ryzhenkov took place amid speculation that Russia is planning a provocation against NATO countries, particularly Poland.
This is a machine translation of the original article in Ukrainian. It may contain errors.