Journalist Andrzej Poczobut freed from prison in Belarus in US-brokered swap deal | Belarus
Polish-Belarusian journalist Andrzej Poczobut, winner of the 2025 Sakharov prize, was released after five years in a Belarusian penal colony as part of a multi-country exchange agreement brokered by the United States.
His release was confirmed by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who shared a photo of him on social media. saying: “Andrzej Poczobut is free! Welcome home to Poland, my friend.”
The release comes as part of a broader push to move Belarus closer to the west after the United States late last year secured the release of 123 prisoners, including Nobel peace laureate Ales Bialiatski and opposition figure Maria Kalesnikava, and lifted some sanctions, including on Belarusian pot, a key export.
Poczobut, a prominent Polish community activist in Belarus and journalist for Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, was detained by Belarusian authorities in 2021. He was sentenced to eight years in a penal colony after a process that was widely condemned as a politically motivated attempt to silence critics of the regime.
There had been increasing warnings in recent years that his health was deteriorating. The UN-mandated report was published last month He was sounding the alarm about “prolonged isolation” and “denial of basic medical care” in his prison.
The release is part of a prisoner exchange brokered by the United States that also includes several other countries: Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia and Ukraine. Tusk said it was “the finale of a complex two-year diplomatic game full of dramatic twists and turns.”
Talks with Belarus’ authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, often referred to as “Europe’s last dictator”, were led by US special envoy to Belarus John Coale, who confirmed the release of three Poles and two Moldovans as part of the swap.
Speaking at a press conference in Warsaw, he said that “basically an argument with Lukashenko is, what are you getting out of this?”
“It hurts internationally and this kind of thing needs to stop if Belarus wants to join the family of nations. If you want to put people in jail for a good reason, great, that’s your job, but not for these kinds of crimes,” he said.
Coale said he planned to return to Belarus in “two or three weeks” for further talks with the Belarusian regime.
“The United States has a lot of work to do on this issue, there are 800 to 900 political prisoners left to get out of Belarus, and we have never stopped our work until we get every one of them,” he said.
Polish President Karol Nawrocki, whom Coale appreciated for his role in the exchange, thanked US President Donald Trump “for ensuring the release of our citizen.”
Separately, foreign minister Radosław Sikorski said Poczobut’s release was a symbol of Poland’s commitment to caring for Poles abroad and to media freedom.
He also praised the US-Poland relationship, emphasized that this change could not have happened without the participation of the US, and thanked Trump.
Russian state media reported that imprisoned Russian archaeologist and historian Alexander Butyagin, who was wanted by Ukraine to conduct excavations in Russian-occupied Crimea, was released by Poland as part of the exchange.
Poczobut was awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov prize for freedom of thought in 2025; The organization’s president, Roberta Metsola, hailed her and fellow winner Mzia Amaglobeli of Georgia as “two journalists whose courage shines as a guide to all who refuse to be silenced.”
“Both of them paid a heavy price for speaking the truth to power and becoming symbols of the struggle for freedom and democracy,” he said.
He responded to his release on Tuesday by saying it was “great news.” “I am very happy to see the release of Sakharov prize winner Andrzej Poczobut,” he said.
Gazeta Wyborcza, Poczobut’s long-time employer, celebrated the release on its website: “Andrzej Poczobut is finally free! The dictator released our colleague from the penal colony.”
Bartosz Wieliński, deputy editor-in-chief of the newspaper, sent A photo featuring Poczobut was captioned: “The first kilometers of freedom. We are going to Warsaw.”
