Belarus on Thursday released and pardoned 52 prisoners after a deal with the United States that saw Washington lift sanctions on the state-run airline Belavia, state media reported.
The list of freed detainees, published by the Belarusian news agency Belta, included 14 foreign nationals convicted on charges including espionage, extremism and terrorism. The foreign nationals comprised six Lithuanians, two each from Latvia, Poland and Germany, one French citizen and one British national. A U.S. embassy spokesperson in Vilnius said the freed prisoners were en route to Lithuania.
The pardons followed a meeting in Minsk between President Alexander Lukashenko and John Coale, a lawyer who led a U.S. delegation described by Belarusian state media as representing U.S. President Donald Trump. Belta quoted Coale as saying the U.S. was lifting sanctions on Belavia, allowing the carrier to service and buy components for its fleet, which includes Boeing aircraft. Coale said the decision had been taken by U.S. agencies including the State Department, Treasury and Commerce.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Naus�17da called the move "a great diplomatic success for the United States and for us all" and said on X that he was "deeply grateful to the United States and personally to President @realDonaldTrump for their continued efforts to free political prisoners." Naus�17da said the freed included opposition figures, journalists and participants in protests, and named Lithuanian national Elena Ramanauskiene, who had been jailed last year on espionage charges.
Belarusian state television showed Coale handing Lukashenko a letter said to be from Trump signed simply "Donald," an act state media described as a personal gesture. Belta quoted Lukashenko as praising Trump and saying Minsk sought closer ties with Washington; the Belarusian leader also said the United States had asked for the prisoner releases.
The handover marks the largest single batch of pardons by Lukashenko since mass detentions that followed a disputed 2020 presidential election unleashed the countrys biggest protests in decades. Critics and rights groups say thousands have been jailed since 2020; Lukashenko rejects that there are political prisoners and says those detained are criminals.
The release of 52 people falls far short of the 1,300 to 1,400 prisoners U.S. officials said Trump had asked Lukashenko to free in an earlier conversation, and it was not immediately clear whether prominent dissidents such as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski were among those pardoned. Since July 2024, Lukashenko has pardoned nearly 300 people, including some U.S. citizens, in a series of actions the Kremlin-aligned leader has said were meant to mend ties with the West.
Human rights activists cautioned that the pardons may be transactional. Vytis Jurkonis, head of Freedom Houses Vilnius office, said Lukashenko was using releases as leverage to improve his international standing while continuing to detain critics and maintain a climate of repression. "He is using the releases to uphold the illusion of change in Belarus, but the real change would be happening if terror in the country ceases, the exiles are allowed to return, the Russian army leaves," Jurkonis told Reuters.
Belarus, a country of about 9.5 million, has been led by Lukashenko for more than three decades. He has allowed Russian forces to use Belarusian territory for Moscows military operations in Ukraine but has avoided committing Belarusian troops directly to the fighting. The latest pardons come at a tense moment in the Russia-Ukraine war and just days after a cross-border incident in which Poland shot down suspected Russian drones; they also precede a planned joint military exercise between Russian and Belarusian forces.
Officials in Vilnius said the freed prisoners were crossing into Lithuania, a NATO and EU member state that has hosted many Belarusian exiles and activists since the 2020 crackdown. Belarusian authorities did not immediately release a full public roster of the freed individuals beyond the nationality breakdown cited by Belta and the Lithuanian governments public statement.
The United States has not publicly released full details of the arrangement or whether any further easing of diplomatic restrictions will follow, including reopening of a U.S. embassy in Minsk, a step Belta said Coale had relayed as a U.S. interest. The Kremlin characterized the move as part of wider diplomatic shifts but did not announce any new policy changes.
Belaruss action is likely to draw scrutiny from rights groups and Western governments monitoring whether pardons lead to sustained political freedom or represent short-term concessions in exchange for sanctions relief. For now, the pardons remove dozens from detention and shift them to neighbouring states, while Belarusian authorities and U.S. representatives frame the outcome as a diplomatic breakthrough.