The opposition leader in Belarus has said President Trump should be nominated for the Nobel peace prize for his work helping to free political prisoners.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said the US president was personally involved in “humanitarian” work in her country. She is widely considered to have won the Belarusian election of 2020 after running against dictator Alexander Lukashenko in place of her husband, Siarhei Tsikanhouski, who had been imprisoned by the regime. The pair were reunited in June after negotiations between Lukashenko and the US administration and now live in exile in Lithuania.
Tsikhanouskaya said she spoke by phone last week with John Coale, who was appointed by Trump as special envoy to Belarus on November 9. Coale was part of the US team who worked to secure the release of Tsikhanouskaya’s husband and 13 other political prisoners in the summer.
John Coale
YAUHEN YERCHAK/ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES
“We are welcoming this step,” Tsikhanouskaya said of Coale’s appointment. “John Coale is a very experienced negotiator, working on a humanitarian [effort] that we will encourage [the US] to continue. President Trump, his personal involvement is also crucial … I think Belarus is the only country in the world where he is personally involved in this humanitarian side.”
Coale secured the release of a further 52 political prisoners after a visit to Belarus in September.
His appointment as envoy is the latest step in a tentative rapprochement between the US and Lukashenko, 71, who has ruled the country since 1994 and had been almost entirely frozen out after allowing President Putin to launch part of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine from Belarus’s borders. At the start of this month, Trump lifted sanctions against Belavia, the national airline of Belarus.
Tsikhanouskaya, who was speaking on a visit to London to address parliament and receive a human rights award, said Coale told her on Wednesday that he expected to secure the release of 50 more prisoners within “a matter of weeks”. Among those, she hopes, will be Ales Bialiatski, 63, a Belarusian pro-democracy activist imprisoned since 2021, who won the Nobel peace prize the following year.
Tsikhanouskaya with a picture Ales Bialiatski
VICKI COUCHMAN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
“[Ales] can nominate President Trump for a peace award if he is released,” Tsikhanouskaya said. Asked whether she hoped that he would nominate Trump for the award the US president has publicly coveted, she added: “I think so … it would be a strong, strong message to the peace prize committee.”
However, she added: “We asked John Coale not to buy political prisoners for too high a price. Lukashenko’s aim is to use people as bargaining chips … but President Trump has both carrots and sticks and it’s necessary to keep both in mind.”
Tsikhanouskaya said she believes Trump’s work in her country is motivated by a belief that Belarus could hold the key to ending the war in Ukraine. She also thinks the US president understands her country’s strategic importance for regional security. “In the context of the war in Ukraine, Lukashenko [can be] perceived as the key to the heart of Putin, like a postman to Putin.”
Tsikhanouskaya dedicated the Magnitsy human rights award she received on Thursday to “all those who suffer behind bars but refuse to bow to injustice”. It is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who was murdered in Russian police custody.
Her husband, a video blogger with millions of followers, was jailed in August 2020 after challenging Lukashenko in elections. After his imprisonment, Tsikhanouskaya stood instead and was widely considered to have won, but then fled to Lithuania to escape imprisonment herself.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and her husband after his release in June
TADAS KAZAKEVICIUS FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
On June 20 this year, Tsikhanouski was bundled across the Lithuanian border with a bag over his head in a surprise release. His wife, who had not known whether he was still alive, said she believes the release was a tactic by Lukashenko to divide her supporters.
“They thought that it would split our family. They thought that we would start competing. But of course, it’s not our story,” she said. “They miscalculated.”
Their reunion has not been without challenges. “In his mind, he was still in 2020 … I was a housewife and of course he was a bit astonished that now, as he calls me, I’m a businesswoman, meeting with presidents and prime ministers,” she said. “But while it might be hard for him to accept, this understanding came and he is not going to compete with me.”
She said her husband’s time in solitary confinement, where he was forced to stand in cold “punishment” cells, with limited food, has resulted in “huge psychological and physical traumas”.
“All political prisoners have to go through the process of rehabilitation after prison,” she said. “My task is to cover my husband with love. He is still seeking out where he might be more useful in politics or in media but his release was really a boost of energy to our movement … It’s a miracle that we can spend time together.”