Belarus Frees Nobel Prize Laureate, Other Prominent Political Prisoners As U.S. Lifts Sanctions

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Belarusian authorities on Saturday released Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, main opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova and other prominent political prisoners, a human rights group confirmed.

Their release comes as authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko seeks to improve relations with Washington. The United States announced early Saturday that sanctions on the country’s potash sector had been lifted. According to Belta state news agency, Lukashenko pardoned a total of 123 prisoners in return.

Minsk, a close ally of Russia, has faced Western isolation and sanctions for years. Lukashenko ruled the nation It reached 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than thirty years and the country Approved many times by Western countries both for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its own territory in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Belarus has released hundreds of prisoners since July 2024.

US special envoy to Belarus John Coale announced the lifting of sanctions on potash after meeting with Lukashenko in Minsk on Friday and Saturday.

Speaking to reporters, Coale described the two-day talks as “very productive,” Belarus’ state news agency Belta reported on Saturday. Normalizing relations between Washington and Minsk is “our goal,” he said.

“We are lifting the sanctions, we are releasing the prisoners. We are constantly talking to each other,” he said, according to Belta. He also said that with the increase in dialogue, the relationship between the countries is moving from “baby steps to more confident steps”.

Pavel Sapelka, an advocate for the rights group Viastan, confirmed to The Associated Press that Bialiatski and Kolesnikova had been released from prison.

Human rights defender Bialiatski won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 together with leading Russian rights group Memorial and Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties.

Bialiatski, who was awarded the award while in prison awaiting trial, was later found guilty of financing smuggling as well as acts that violated public order – charges widely condemned as politically motivated – and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2023.

Kolesnikova was an important name Mass protests that shook Belarus in 2020, and a close ally of an exiled opposition leader, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

Kolesnikova, known for her close-cropped hair and 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. After being deported to the Ukrainian border, he briefly left the border security forces, tore up his passport and returned to Belarus.

The 43-year-old professional flautist was convicted in 2021 of charges that included conspiracy to seize power and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Others released, according to Viasna, include opposition figure Viktar Babaryka, who tried to challenge Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election, widely seen as fraudulent, and was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison on charges he denied as political.

Viasna said that the group’s detained lawyers Valiantsin Stefanovic and Uladzimir Labkovich and prominent opposition figure Maxim Znak were also released.

Speaking to the AP, Tsikhanouskaya’s senior advisor Franak Viachorka said that most of them were brought to Ukraine.

“I think Lukashenko decided to deport people to Ukraine to show that he is in control of the situation,” Viachorka said.

Viachorka said eight or nine people, including Bialiatski, would be brought to Lithuania on Saturday, and more prisoners would be taken to Lithuania in the next few days.

Ukrainian officials confirmed that Belarus handed over 114 civilians. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that five of them were Ukrainian citizens.

In the last meeting of US officials with Lukashenko in September 2025, Washington announced that it had eased some of the sanctions against Belarus, while Mink released more than 50 political prisoners to Lithuania. With the release in September, the number of prisoners released by Belarus since July 2024 exceeded 430; this was widely seen as an effort to rapprochement with the West.

“The release of political prisoners means that Lukashenko understands the pain of Western sanctions and is trying to ease them,” Tsikhanouskaya told the AP on Saturday.

He added: “But let’s not be naive: Lukashenko has not changed his policies, his pressures remain and he continues to support Russia’s war against Ukraine. Therefore, we need to be extremely careful in any talk of easing sanctions, so that we do not strengthen Russia’s war machine and encourage the continuation of pressures.”

Tsikhnouskaya also stated that the European Union’s sanctions against Belarus’ potassium fertilizers are much more painful for Minsk than the sanctions imposed by the United States, and said that easing US sanctions could lead to the release of political prisoners, but European sanctions must lead to long-term, systemic changes in Belarus and an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Belarus, which previously accounted for about 20% of global potash fertilizer exports, has faced a sharp decline in shipments as Western sanctions targeted state producer Belaruskali and cut off transit through the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda, the country’s main export route.

“Sanctions imposed by the United States, the EU and their allies have significantly weakened Belarus’ potash industry, depriving the country of a major source of foreign exchange earnings and access to key markets,” analyst Anastasiya Luzgina of the Belarusian Economic Research Center BEROC told the AP.

“Minsk hopes that the lifting of US sanctions on potash will lead to the easing of more painful European sanctions; at least US actions will allow discussions to begin,” he said.

According to Belta’s report, in the last round of US-Belarus talks, Russia’s ongoing occupation of Ukraine, as well as Venezuela, was also touched upon.

Coale told reporters that Lukashenko had given “good advice” on how to handle the Ukraine war and that Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin were “long-time friends” with “the necessary level of relationship to discuss such issues.”

“Naturally, President Putin may accept some recommendations and not others,” Coale said.