Belarus freed 25 more prisoners in exchange for a further easing of U.S. sanctions

🔸John Cole, the U.S. special envoy, said that the Belarusian government has released 25 prisoners in exchange for further reductions in U.S. sanctions.

🔸He told Reuters on Wednesday, 25 Shahrivar, that within the next month hundreds of other prisoners may also be freed in this country.

🔸The new deal is the latest result of a series of negotiations that have been ongoing for more than a year between Cole and Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus and a close ally of Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia.

🔸Cole has been tasked by U.S. President Donald Trump to try to secure the release of hundreds of human rights activists, political activists, journalists, and lawyers in Belarus.

🔸Lukashenko, who has led this former Soviet state since 1994, has long been shunned by Western countries for his crackdown on his opponents and his support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

🔸The Viasna human rights group, which has been banned in Belarus as an extremist organization, said many of the people released on Wednesday had been serving long prison terms.

🔸A source familiar with the situation told Reuters that in addition to these 25 people, a significant number of other prisoners are also expected to be released, but they will remain inside Belarus.

🔸Cole had previously said that the United States would lift sanctions against the company “Lakkrasa,” a producer of paints and industrial coatings, and “BelLesboompRum,” a state industrial group that oversees forestry, pulp, and paper sectors.

🔸He also, on Tuesday, promised Lukashenko that he would try to get U.S. banks to release tens of millions of dollars from Belarus’s assets that have been frozen.

🔸Koval’s humanitarian efforts have been appreciated by many Belarusians, but human rights groups and opposition politicians say arrests continue and that Lukashenko has not yet halted the crackdown.

🔸Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the leader of Belarus’s opposition, who is in exile, says Lukashenko does not free citizens out of humanitarianism; “instead, people are a commodity for him, and Lukashenko wants to sell them as expensively as possible.”