Belarus frees 52 political prisoners, including foreigners, after visit by US delegation | Belarus

Belarus issued 52 prisoners from various nations after a visit to Alexander Lukashenko attempting to balance the ties between Russia and the West.

The prisoner of Thursday was one of the largest of Lukashenko’s authoritarian administration, a part of the relief of safe sanctions after improvement of relations with Washington and after years of isolation.

Among those released were 14 foreign nationals – a British, one French citizen, six Lithuanian, two Latvia, two poles and two Germans – and a series of Belarus political prisoners.

A Belarus Opposition Telegram Channel, released British citizen, in March 2024, entering Belarus’a detained and then participated in the anti -government protests of the 52 -year -old Julia Fenner was sentenced to seven years in prison, he said.

The independent Belarus media reported that Fenner had Belarus and British citizenship and previously worked at the British Embassy in Minsk. Guardian could not independently confirm its release.

In exchange for the release of Lukashenko, the US Embassy in Vilnius will relieve sanctions in Belarus National Airline Belavia and allow it to serve for the Boeing aircraft fleet.

Belarus state agencies, a lawyer chaired by the American delegation, John Coale, Donald Trump told Lukashenko that Washington wanted to reopen his Embassy in Minsk.

Lukashenko has met with US officials many times since Trump took office and spoke to the US president by phone.

A Trump management official said that the United States welcomed the release of political prisoners by Belarus, and that the White House will continue to save about 1,300 political prisoners in Belarus.

The authority also said that the US delegation, directed by Coale, will deal with regional security problems, including the armament of illegal immigration from Belarus to neighboring NATO countries.

The observers are trying to benefit from Lukashenko’s desire to end Trump’s War against Russia against Ukraine, while at the same time trying to increase his power in the midst of fear that Belarus’s sovereignty can be increasingly swallowed by an ambitious Russia.

“Our main mission is to stand with Trump and to help him in the mission of establishing peace,” he said, referring to the claim that Trump has solved six or seven world conflicts on Thursday.

Trump described the Belarus leader as “respected ,, and he defined Lukashenko sharply with his efforts to isolate Lukashenko after the ruthless pressure in the opposition after the 2020 presidential elections, which were extensively condemned to Lukashenko.

In June, the US presidential ambassador for Keith Kellogg was followed by Minsk’s visit to Minsk, and the release of Syyarhei Tsikhanouski, an important opposition figure, who was sentenced to about five years of imprisonment after activating the anti-Lukeshenko protests before the survey of 2020.

While the Belarus opposition figures in the exile welcomed the latest political version wave, they argue that Lukashenko is strictly compatible with Moscow and used political prisoners as a bargaining chip for the relief of sanctions to burn their international stance and to raise a weakened economy in recent years.

“Today, Potus and his team provided the release of 52 political hostages in Belarus – 38 Belaruslu and 14 strangers… We are grateful for the strong US leadership… More than 1,200 hostages should be pledged – all of them should be released -” Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya wrote every abroad.

According to Belarus Niva Niva, those who were forgiven on Thursday, Nikolai Statkevich, philosopher Vladimir Matskevich and several independent journalists were the former Belarus presidency.

The leading critics of Lukashenko’s rules of decades, the opposition leader Maria Kelesnikova and the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize remained behind the railings, including Ales Bialiatski, the human rights defender of the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Even if he released the detainees groups, the regime maintains his pressure on the opposition and punishes the government as small as the past social media.

Only this week, a Russian prisoner, based on what critics defined as politically motivated charges, died under indefinite conditions.

The prisoner release comes to a very tense moment for the region, just a day after the Zapad’s common military exercises between Poland’s Russian drones on the territory and between the Russian and Belarus armed forces.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that some of the drones that violate the Polish airspace enter the soil of Belarus for the first time. Belarus’ Chief of General Staff Pavel Muraviko claimed that Minsk warned the drone as he approached the borders of Poland and Lithuania as he approached the borders and even hit a little.

Although Belarus continued his support for Russia’s war, the US said that the movement was able to maneuver between the two sides to alleviate sanctions on Thursday – that it was a concrete gain for him.

“I don’t remember a more schizophrenic moment in Belarus’s foreign policy, Artı “On September 10, the Russian plane passed the western border in one direction, a US delegation moved to the other and removed the news of aviation sanctions in exchange for political prisoners.”