Belarus freed 52 political prisoners on Thursday, including 14 foreign citizens, in a deal brokered by the United States, according to the government of Lithuania, which said it received those released.
The move was the latest gesture by Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, Belarus’s longtime authoritarian leader and a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, as he seeks to normalize relations with the Trump administration.
In exchange for the release, the United States will lift sanctions on Belarus’s national airline, Belavia, which were imposed in 2023, said John Coale, a U.S. envoy who was in the Belarusian capital, Minsk. Mr. Coale added that the State Department hoped to reopen its embassy in Minsk, which was closed days after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Among the prisoners freed were six Lithuanian citizens, two each from Latvia, Poland and Germany, one French citizen and British national, according to Belta, the Belarusian state news agency.
“I am deeply grateful to the United States and personally to President @realDonaldTrump for their continued efforts to free political prisoners,” President Gitanas Nauseda of Lithuania wrote on social media.
During his visit to Minsk, Mr. Coale, the deputy to Keith Kellogg, President Trump’s special envoy to Russia and Ukraine, met with Mr. Lukashenko. In a televised portion of the talks, Mr. Coale presented Mr. Lukashenko with a letter from Mr. Trump and made the announcement about lifting sanctions.
The letter was signed, “Donald,” in what Mr. Coale said was a “rare” and “a special sign of friendship.” He also gave Mr. Lukashenko a set of White House cuff links.
Mr. Trump has been pursuing the release of the more than 1,000 political prisoners in Belarus since returning to office. Mr. Lukashenko freed more than a dozen political prisoners in June, including the opposition leader Sergei Tikhanovsky. Mr. Trump said he had later spoken with Mr. Lukashenko to thank him.
“I had a wonderful talk with the highly respected President of Belarus,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media on Aug. 15, the same day as his summit in Alaska with Mr. Putin. “We are also discussing the release of 1,300 additional prisoners.”
U.N. experts say that many of those prisoners, especially women, face inhumane conditions. Mr. Tikhanovsky endured extreme food deprivation in prison and other harsh treatment, and emerged 132 pounds lighter when he was released than when he entered in 2020.
On Thursday, Mr. Lukashenko said he was open to a larger deal to release prisoners and normalize ties with Washington.
“If Donald insists he’s ready to take all these released people in, let’s try to work out a global deal, just as Mr. Trump likes, a big deal,” he said.
Mr. Lukashenko has ruled Belarus for three decades and has often been called Europe’s last dictator. Since 2020, he has been seen as a satrap of Mr. Putin, after calling on the Russian leader’s help in violently suppressing demonstrations against elections that were widely believed to have been falsified. Two years later, Mr. Lukashenko allowed Russian troops to invade Ukraine from Belarusian territory.
Even as Mr. Lukashenko has grown more reliant on Mr. Putin, he has also sought a rapprochement with the United States, offering himself as a mediator between Washington and Moscow. Since July 2024, he has freed more than 300 political prisoners, although he has continued to repress anyone deemed an opponent.
Many Belarusians in exile since 2020 welcomed the signs of a rapprochement with the United States.
“I see very few negatives in this agreement,” said Yan Auseyushkin, a senior analyst at the International Strategic Action Network for Security, a Warsaw-based think tank. “What is important is the mobility of Belarusians, that they maintain contact with the West and have an alternative to Russia. And if this continues, many people will be freed.”
Thursday’s meeting in Minsk came as Belarus is poised to host joint military exercises with Russia starting on Friday, two days after Russian drones flew over Poland, shocking NATO members. Though some of the drones were reported to have entered Poland from Belarus, Minsk was quick to try to distance itself from the attack, saying it had called Warsaw to warn about the incursion.
That phone call, Mr. Auseyushkin said, was another sign that Belarus was trying to rebuild its relations with the West.
Valerie Hopkins covers the war in Ukraine and how the conflict is changing Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the United States. She is based in Moscow.
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