VILNIUS, Lithuania\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Belarus freed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, key opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova and more than 120 other political prisoners Saturday, capping two days of talks with Washington aimed at improving ties and getting U.S. sanctions lifted on a key Belarusian agricultural export.<\/p>\n
President Alexander Lukashenko pardoned 123 prisoners, Belarus\u2019 state news agency, Belta, reported. In exchange, the U.S. said it was lifting sanctions on the Eastern European country\u2019s potash sector.<\/p>\n
A close ally of Russia, Belarus has faced Western isolation and sanctions for years. Lukashenko has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades, and the country has been repeatedly sanctioned by Western countries for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. <\/p>\n
John Coale, the U.S. special envoy for Belarus who met with Lukashenko in Minsk on Friday and Saturday, described the talks as \u201cvery productive\u201d and said normalizing relations between the two countries was \u201cour goal.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re lifting sanctions, releasing prisoners. We\u2019re constantly talking to each other,\u201d Coale said, adding that the relationship between the countries was moving from \u201cbaby steps to more confident steps\u201d as they increased dialogue, the Belarusian news agency said. <\/p>\n
Belarus has released hundreds of prisoners since July 2024. Among the 123 freed Saturday were a U.S. citizen, six citizens of U.S.-allied countries and five Ukrainian citizens, a U.S. official told the Associated Press in an email. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic negotiations, described the release as \u201ca significant milestone in U.S.-Belarus engagement\u201d and an important diplomatic win for President Trump.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, one of the released Belarusian prisoners, is surrounded by his supporters as he arrives at the U.S. Embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Dec. 13, 2025.<\/p>\n
(Mindaugas Kulbis \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n
Pavel Sapelka, an advocate with the Viasna rights group, confirmed to the AP that Bialiatski and Kolesnikova were released from prison. <\/p>\n
Bialiatski, a human rights advocate who founded Viasna, was in jail when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, along with the prominent Russian rights group Memorial and Ukraine\u2019s Center for Civil Liberties. He was later convicted of smuggling and financing actions that violate public order \u2014 charges widely denounced as politically motivated \u2014 and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2023.<\/p>\n
Bialiatski told the AP by phone Saturday that his release after 1,613 days behind bars came as a surprise \u2014 in the morning, he was still in an overcrowded prison cell.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like I jumped out of icy water into a normal, warm room, so I have to adapt. After isolation, I need to get information about what\u2019s going on,\u201d said Bialiatski, who seemed energetic but pale and emaciated in post-release videos and photos.<\/p>\n
He vowed to continue his work, stressing that \u201cmore than a thousand political prisoners in Belarus remain behind bars simply because they chose freedom. And, of course, I am their voice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kolesnikova was a key figure in the mass protests that rocked Belarus in 2020, and is a close ally of an opposition leader in exile, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. <\/p>\n
Kolesnikova, known for her close-cropped hair and frequent gesture of forming a heart with her hands, became an even greater symbol of resistance when Belarusian authorities tried to deport her in September 2020. Driven to the Ukrainian border, she briefly broke away from security forces at the frontier, tore up her passport and walked back into Belarus.<\/p>\n
The 43-year-old professional flutist was convicted in 2021 on charges including conspiracy to seize power and sentenced to 11 years in prison. <\/p>\n
Among the others released, according to Viasna, was Viktar Babaryka \u2014 an opposition figure who had sought to challenge Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election, widely seen as rigged, before being convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison on charges he rejected as political. <\/p>\n
Viasna said the group\u2019s imprisoned advocates, Valiantsin Stefanovic and Uladzimir Labkovich, and prominent opposition figure Maxim Znak were also freed. But it later said it was clarifying its report about Stefanovic\u2019s release, and Bialiatski told the AP that Stefanovic had not been freed, though he hopes he will be soon.<\/p>\n
Most of the freed prisoners were brought into Ukraine, Franak Viachorka, Tsikhanouskaya\u2019s senior advisor, told the AP. Eight or nine others, including Bialiatski, were being sent to Lithuania on Saturday, and more prisoners will be taken to the Baltic country in the next few days, Viachorka said.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian authorities confirmed that Belarus handed over 114 civilians, including five Ukrainian nationals. Freed Belarusian nationals \u201cat their request\u201d and \u201cafter being given necessary medical treatment\u201d will be taken to Poland and Lithuania, they said.<\/p>\n
Lukashenko\u2019s press secretary, Natalya Eismont, said those released were sent to Ukraine because Kyiv was going to free several imprisoned Belarusian and Russian nationals as part of the deal, although Ukrainian officials haven\u2019t confirmed the claim yet.<\/p>\n
When U.S. officials last met with Lukashenko in September, Washington announced easing some of the sanctions against Belarus while Minsk released more than 50 political prisoners. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe freeing of political prisoners means that Lukashenko understands the pain of Western sanctions and is seeking to ease them,\u201d Tsikhanouskaya told the AP on Saturday. <\/p>\n
She added: \u201cBut let\u2019s not be naive: Lukashenko hasn\u2019t changed his policies, his crackdown continues, and he keeps on supporting Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine. That\u2019s why we need to be extremely cautious with any talk of sanctions relief, so that we don\u2019t reinforce Russia\u2019s war machine and encourage continued repressions.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Maria Kolesnikova, a key Belarusian opposition figure, hugs a woman after being released from detention in Belarus, at the Ukrainian Belarusian border.<\/p>\n
(Press Service of Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n
Belarus, which previously accounted for about 20% of global potash fertilizer exports, has faced sharply reduced shipments since Western sanctions targeted state producer Belaruskali and cut off transit through Lithuania\u2019s Klaipeda port, the country\u2019s main export route.<\/p>\n
\u201cSanctions by the U.S., EU and their allies have significantly weakened Belarus\u2019 potash industry, depriving the country of a key source of foreign exchange earnings and access to key markets,\u201d Anastasia Luzgina, an analyst at the Belarusian Economic Research Center, told the AP, noting that Minsk probably hopes this paves the way for easing the more painful European sanctions. <\/p>\n
The latest round of U.S.-Belarus talks also touched on Venezuela, as well as Russia\u2019s ongoing war on Ukraine, Belta reported. <\/p>\n
Coale told reporters that Lukashenko had given \u201cgood advice\u201d on how to address the Ukraine war, noting that Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin were \u201clongtime friends\u201d with \u201cthe necessary level of relationship to discuss such issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. official told the AP that \u201ccontinued progress in U.S.-Belarus relations\u201d also requires steps to resolve tensions between Belarus and neighboring Lithuania, which is a member of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. <\/p>\n
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda welcomed the prisoners\u2019 release, praising their \u201cremarkable courage\u201d in a post on X and adding that \u201cLithuania stands with them and all who strive for freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lithuanian government this week declared a national emergency over security risks posed by meteorological balloons sent from Belarus. The balloons forced Lithuania to repeatedly shut down its main airport, stranding thousands of people.<\/p>\n
Karmanau writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VILNIUS, Lithuania\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Belarus freed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, key opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova and more than 120…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":445450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[25818,1582,276,9958,119184,205156,2961,14611,224,5337,205153,205155,205154,5332,184475,257,116528,5395,273,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-445449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-belarus","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-country","12":"tag-john-coale","13":"tag-kolesnikova","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-lithuania","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-losangeles","18":"tag-lukashenko","19":"tag-minsk","20":"tag-other-prominent-political-prisoner","21":"tag-prison","22":"tag-prisoner","23":"tag-russia","24":"tag-sanction","25":"tag-saturday","26":"tag-ukraine","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115715282915257379","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}