Lukashenko Offers US to Release Prisoners in Exchange for Lifting Sanctions

Rzeczpospolita sources reported that it could be a "larger number" of the 1,300 people Trump spoke about after his conversation with Lukashenko. MINSK expects restrictions on Belavia and Belaruskali to be lifted ALEXANDER LUKASHENKO

The Belarusian authorities continue negotiations with American diplomats on the release of prisoners by Minsk, who could then be taken to one of the EU countries, Rzeczpospolita reports, citing three sources.

On August 15, the presidents of the two countries, Alexander Lukashenko and Donald Trump, spoke on the phone, discussing, among other things, the issue of prisoners in Belarus. Two days after the conversation, the Republican wrote in Truth Social that he hoped for the quick release of 1,300 people.

According to Rzeczpospolita sources, the decision may affect "a larger number" of these 1.3 thousand. In return, the Belarusian side expects a softening of Western sanctions. In particular, Minsk wants to achieve the lifting of restrictions on the Belavia airline (they were introduced after the forced landing in Minsk of a Ryanair plane flying from Athens to Vilnius and the detention of the former editor-in-chief of the TELEGRAM channelxxxxx Roman Protasevich in 2021) and Belaruskali, Europe's largest producer of potash fertilizers.

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The US imposed sectoral sanctions on the Belarusian economy in the summer of 2021, following the EU and the UK, in connection with the situation around the 2020 presidential elections. At that time, protests broke out in the country due to Lukashenko being declared the winner. Subsequently, more than 4.7 thousand criminal cases were opened against their participants, and a number of opposition politicians were sentenced to various terms. Some of them, including Lukashenko's opponent in the elections Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, left the country.

Lukashenko said that during a conversation with Trump, the politicians "very briefly" touched on the topic of a possible pardon for the convicted. "Do you want one and a half or two thousand (as they count)? Take them with you, take them there [to the US]. It's not worth counting on us releasing the bandits who burned and blew up, and they admit it. We release them, and they will wage war against us again? Society won't support me here," he said.

Over the past two years, Lukashenko has pardoned several dozen prisoners; on June 21, opposition leader Sergei Tikhanovsky, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya's husband, was released. This happened after Trump's special representative Keith Kellogg visited the country.

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