Belarus has pardoned a total of 123 prisoners after the US announced it was lifting some economic sanctions on the key Russia ally.
It comes as President Alexander Lukashenko seeks to improve relations with Washington, having faced Western isolation and sanction for years.
On Saturday Belarusian authorities on Saturday freed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, key opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova and other prominent political prisoners, human rights group Viastan confirmed.
Washington earlier on Saturday announced lifting sanctions on the country’s potash sector. In exchange, Lukashenko pardoned a total of 123 prisoners, the Belta state news agency reported.
Lukashenko has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for more than three decades, and the country has been repeatedly sanctioned by Western countries both for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Belarus has released hundreds of prisoners since July 2024.
John Coale, the US special envoy for Belarus, announced the lifting of sanctions on potash fertilisers after meeting Lukashenko in Minsk on Friday and Saturday.
Speaking with journalists, Coale described the two-day talks as “very productive,” Belarus’ state news agency Belta reported Saturday. He said that normalising relations between Washington and Minsk was “our goal.”
“We’re lifting sanctions, releasing prisoners. We’re constantly talking to each other,” he said, according to Belta.
He also said that the relationship between the countries was moving from “baby steps to more confident steps” as they increased dialogue.
Who was freed?
Among the prisoners was human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, along with prominent Russian rights group Memorial and Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties.
Bialiatski was awarded the prize while in jail and awaiting trial. He was later convicted of smuggling as well as financing actions that violate public order – charges widely denounced as politically motivated – and sentenced to 10 years in 2023.
Maria Kolesnikova, another prominent prisoner, 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.
Kolesnikova, known for her close-cropped hair and trademark 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.
The 43-year-old professional flautist was convicted in 2021 on charges including conspiracy to seize power and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Others who were released, according to Viasna, include Viktar Babaryka – 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.
Viasna said that the group’s imprisoned advocates, Valiantsin Stefanovic and Uladzimir Labkovich, and prominent opposition figure Maxim Znak, were released as well.
Most of them were brought into Ukraine, Franak Viachorka, Tsikhanouskaya’s senior adviser, told the Associated Press.
“I think Lukashenko decided to deport people to Ukraine to show that he is in control of the situation,” Viachorka said.
Eight or nine others, including Bialiatski, will be brought to Lithuania on Saturday, and more prisoners will be taken to Lithuania in the next few days, Viachorka said.
Ukrainian authorities confirmed that Belarus handed over 114 civilians. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said five of them were Ukrainian nationals.
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