Washington’s prisoners-for-sanctions deals with Belarus are losing momentum, with the latest round yielding just 25 freed prisoners and relief for two minor companies, Artyom Shraibman writes for Carnegie Politika on September 22.
US special envoy John Coale returned to Minsk on September 15 after a six-month hiatus, but his meeting with Belarus’ contested leader Alexander Lukashenko was less productive than previous encounters, Shraibman, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, wrote in the commentary published on September 22.
“The recent talks have demonstrated that the terrain of the negotiations is becoming increasingly boggy. The risks of delays are growing, and the process could reach a stalemate,” he wrote.
Belarus released and deported 25 political prisoners, including prominent journalists and activists, to Lithuania this time, against more than 120 in December 2025 and 250 in March 2026, most of whom were allowed to stay in Belarus. On the day Coale arrived, sources said as many as 200 prisoners were being prepared for release, and their relatives had already been told.
The shrinking exchange suggests the transactional model that has run since 2025 is hitting its limits. Washington has already handed over its biggest concessions, lifting sanctions on Belarusian potash producers, national carrier Belavia and Belarusian banks, while the prize Minsk wants most – EU sanctions relief and a route for its potash exports through its neighbours – is not in the US’ gift. Shraibman warned as early as March that time was running out for Lukashenko’s courtship of Trump.
This time the US lifted sanctions on just two companies: paint and coatings maker Lakokraska and state-owned Bellesbumprom, which oversees companies in the timber, paper and furniture industries. The barely profitable Lakokraska is unlikely to gain much from access to the US market, Shraibman wrote, while Bellesbumprom’s main problem is the EU ban on exports to or via the bloc, which forces it to sell through Russia. Ending US sanctions will only make it easier to pay those third countries, he argued.
Ahead of the talks Lukashenko had demanded that the US unfreeze around $44mn apparently held in a Citibank account, part of Citigroup (NYSE: C), because of sanctions. Coale agreed to submit a request to the bank to release the funds, but no final decision has been announced.
In Shraibman’s account, each previous round had been more substantial than the last and followed a simple script – a Coale visit, a prisoner release and a lifting of sanctions, then quiet negotiations before the next trip. This was the first time plans changed while a meeting was under way. Lukashenko’s first words before the cameras were that the two sides should implement previous agreements, what Shraibman called “a rather chilly opening”, and for the first time Prime Minister Alexander Turchin sat in on the meeting, apparently to spell out what had not been done.
The main unresolved problem is the EU, Shraibman argued. Brussels has no desire to lift sanctions on Belarus and keeps imposing new ones. In the spring Washington asked Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine to let Belarusian potash through to their ports, but they refused, and the US has since stepped up pressure on Lithuania to reopen the Klaipeda route.
Shraibman argued that Minsk is creating new political prisoners almost as fast as it frees them. Since the March release another 224 names have been added to the country’s list of political prisoners, and even though hundreds have left prison after serving their sentences, the total still hovers at about 900. Belarus has jailed more people than it has released under the US deal.
“Even for the administration of President Donald Trump – not known for its concern about human rights – a deal in which the United States is gradually lifting sanctions while Belarus releases political prisoners at the same rate it’s jailing new ones makes little sense,” Shraibman wrote.
Lukashenko would like Minsk’s neighbours brought into the process because they control the transit of Belarusian potash, and Belarusian officials meeting European experts and diplomats behind closed doors often ask for the releases to be seen as a concession to the EU as well as to Washington, he said.
Ukraine is very unlikely to play along, with Russia still destroying its port infrastructure and relations between Kyiv and Minsk in crisis; in mid-September Ukrainian security officials again alleged that Belarus lets Russian drones bound for western Ukraine use its relay stations and mobile networks. Minsk has courted Poland for months, freeing Andrzej Poczobut, one of the leaders of Belarus’ Polish minority, and later allowing him to travel back to Belarus for meetings.
Lithuania is likely to come under the most US pressure. Vilnius is unhappy about the talks, but newly elected Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius, leader of the Social Democratic Party, is slightly more open to negotiations, and Coale met him in Vilnius after seeing Lukashenko and discussed potash transit, according to The New York Times. Latvia, which once handled Belarusian potash, has little reason to help after Minsk redirected migrants it had been pushing towards the Polish border to the Latvian frontier instead.
In any case, EU sanctions bar all three from allowing Belarusian potash exports. Those sanctions come up for renewal in February 2027, and if the dialogue is still alive by then Washington may look for allies inside the EU to block the extension unless potash is exempted, Shraibman wrote.
Trump raised the stakes on September 21 with a post on Truth Social saying the US was negotiating a “massive deal” to buy Belarusian potash at prices “substantially less than we are currently paying to Canada,” The Guardian reported on September 22. Canada supplies nearly 85% of US potash imports, according to BNN Bloomberg, and Lukashenko countered that Belarus had no spare volumes for Western markets because its output was already contracted.
The post changes little, Shraibman argued. Lithuania has already said the deal does not concern it, hinting that the US is welcome to buy Belarusian potash through Russia’s northern ports – financing both the Lukashenko regime and Russia’s war economy. Framing the deal as a blow to Canada could make EU consent even harder to secure.
“It is one thing to help the United States achieve the humanitarian goal of freeing Belarusian political prisoners. It is another to stab Canada, a close EU ally, in the back to help Trump in his trade war with Ottawa,” he wrote.
“The irony of the situation is that having railed at US hegemony for over three decades, Lukashenko is now a victim of the weakening of that very hegemony,” Shraibman concluded. “Washington’s loss of influence in Europe is one of the reasons he cannot get what he wants.”