U.S. President Donald Trump’s velvet glove approach to dealing with dictators now extends to Belarus. But that’s not necessarily all bad, according to opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
“If this rhetoric — of course it’s unpleasant for us — will help to release people, then it’s OK,” she told POLITICO during a sit-down outside the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “President Trump is using these carrots to achieve releases of political prisoners. He uses this. It’s his transactional approach to the problem and we have to use this momentum.”
Trump’s White House has cultivated ties with Alexander Lukashenko, the longtime ruler of Belarus, who in January secured a seventh term in office despite being ostracized by the West for aiding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and for violently crushing pro-democracy protests in 2020.
Trump called Lukashenko before last month’s in-person Alaska confab with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He sent special envoy John Coale on a visit with a letter in honor of Lukashenko’s birthday and spoke glowingly of the autocrat in a recent Truth Social post, referring to Lukashenko as a “highly respected president.”
Lukashenko even says Trump has accepted an invitation to visit him in Minsk.
While Lukashenko’s apparent reintegration disheartens Belarusian opponents, Tsikhanouskaya — who several months ago called for Trump to “punish” the Minsk autocrat — said the warm gestures are worth it as political prisoners are freed from captivity.
“Is it a change of policy of America? No it is not,” she said.
At least at face value, it’s working. Lukashenko freed Tsikhanouskaya’s husband, one-time Belarusian presidential challenger Siarhei Tsikhanouski, after a June visit from special envoy Keith Kellogg. In September, he released 52 more prisoners after the White House lifted sanctions on its national airline, Belavia.
“It doesn’t feel good for Belarusians to hear the way that Trump interacts with Lukashenko,” Tsikhanouski told POLITICO in a separate conversation. “But Belarusians are smart and grown up. They aren’t upset. They understand that if these conversations weren’t happening, there wouldn’t be a question of releasing 1,300 political prisoners.” (Viasna, a human rights group, estimates there are currently 1,201 political prisoners in Belarus.)
But beneath the surface, the opposition’s view of the transatlantic campaign to squeeze Lukashenko has evolved.
They’re still leaning on the Trump administration to promote prisoner releases. But Europe, Tsikhanouskaya’s team now believes, is best positioned to champion the cause of Belarusian freedom — with ever-tightening sanctions key to the pressure campaign.
“European sanctions and tough and principled position is, in the language of President Trump, it’s their cards,” Tsikhanouskaya said. “Now, President Trump is playing his cards, but European cards have to be used just for irreversible, for consistent changes in Belarus.”
Meanwhile Tsikhanouski, who was set free from prison just over three months ago, is still looking to carve out his role in the opposition after five years behind bars, during which his wife stepped up to run against Lukashenko in 2020 then led the exiled opposition.
He’d been held incommunicado for more than two years prior to his release. As Tsikhanouskaya put it, her husband “discovered himself in 2025 but mentally he was in 2020.”
The adjustment, she said, has been difficult.
“It might be a little bit difficult for him now to see me in this new role,” she said. “All of his world is upside down. But I think that he will get used to this. He will find his place.”
Tsikhanouski estimated that he’ll be ready to pick a lane — be it politics or media — in about six months.
“For now, I see my role such that 1,300 prisoners are freed,” he said. “And not just freed, but provided with care and pay.”
The post Let Trump be Trump to save jailed Belarusians, opposition leader says appeared first on Politico.
