In a surprising turn of events, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Keith Kellogg, met with Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk on June 21 resulting in the release of Belarus’ highest profile political prisoner as the president seeks to reengage with the West.

The unprecedented meeting in the post-2020 era of Belarus’s pariah status, saw a total fourteen political prisoners released from jail, the most famous of which was Sergey Tikhanovsky (Siarhei Tsikhanouski), the jailed husband of opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya (Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya).

Lukashenko’s decision to pardon and release the prisoners was not merely a gesture of goodwill; it was a transaction. Since the disputed presidential elections in 2020, where Tikhanovsky was a candidate, the West has imposed crushing sanctions on Belarus which Lukashenko would love to see lifted.

“The Kellogg visit was made possible by the convergence of two complementary interests,” Artyom Shraibman, political analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said in a note. “The Trump administration is keen to revive at least some sort of regional diplomacy amid the stalled peace talks on Ukraine. For his part, Lukashenko has long made clear his desire to emerge from the isolation of recent years to play a more significant role in the region. To that end, he is prepared to make concessions, and releasing political prisoners is an easy win for him.”

 

The authoritarian calculus is blunt: despite the releases, more than 1,100 political prisoners remain behind bars — and more people can always be put in jail. “So Lukashenko has bargaining power, as long as he can find a buyer,” reports Artyom Shraibman.

The buyer, for now, appears to be the Trump administration. Minsk’s first gesture came in late January — a symbolic release of an American citizen within days of Trump’s return to the White House. The message was plain: a more transactional US presidency could be reason enough to deal. This was followed in February by the release of a US citizen and an RFE/RL journalist, and again in April, with the handover of Yuri Zenkovich, another US citizen, escorted personally by Kellogg’s deputy.

The cadence of releases has matched a quiet but deliberate dialogue. Kellogg’s visit is its high watermark to date, and perhaps, as Shraibman puts it, “a breakthrough for Belarusian diplomacy by the standards of the last five years.”

Still, the real shock came with the liberation of Tikhanovsky, the firebrand blogger whose presidential ambitions helped ignite the largest protests in Belarusian history five years ago. Few expected his name to be on the list – particularly as his wife has been a thorn in the regime’s side, tirelessly lobbying global leaders for more extreme sanction Belarus.

“Lukashenko is signalling to the West that he is in principle ready to release any political prisoner: there are no red lines, people just need to keep talking to him,” writes Shraibman.

It is a sharp pivot for a man who has routinely invoked Tikhanovsky’s threats — not just against himself, but his children — as evidence of the opposition’s extremism. But for Lukashenko, domestic political lines can be erased if the external incentives are sufficient. And Washington has begun, cautiously, to oblige, according to Shraibman.

Whether this diplomatic thaw bears fruit remains an open question. Minsk has hostages to trade, and Washington can offer visits, gestures — even perhaps the reopening of an embassy. But gestures won’t lift Belarus’s economy out of isolation.

“Sooner or later, Minsk will expect sanctions to be eased,” Shraibman warns, “and then the EU’s tougher position is likely to become an obstacle.” Indeed, without Brussels on board, US overtures may prove little more than symbolic.

Lukashenko is aware of this. “Minsk is counting on Washington to intervene on its behalf in a future conversation with the EU,” Shraibman says. But for that to happen, “the US interest in Lukashenko needs to be geopolitical as well as humanitarian.”

That’s where Kellogg’s role becomes critical. As Trump’s envoy on Ukraine, he represents a bridge between Lukashenko’s grander ambitions and Washington’s regional priorities. But it is unclear what, if anything, Belarus can offer beyond its willingness to cooperate. Its days as a neutral diplomatic venue are over.

“Now its role has been reduced to a location for Russia and Ukraine to exchange prisoners of war,” Shraibman notes. “No one is planning to move the latest peace talks from Istanbul to Minsk.”

And yet, Washington appears willing to keep the conversation going — a sign, perhaps, of desperation rather than strategy. “It is possible that Washington has low expectations,” says Shraibman, “and simply wants to show that it is having at least some local successes amid the deadlock.” Or maybe Trump’s circle is ready to try anything, including advice from a man “his loyalists like to describe as a rare connoisseur of Putin’s thinking.”

For now, Minsk is trying to extract maximum value from a fleeting moment of relevance. But “it is unclear how Minsk could influence the course of the war or the peace talks even if it wanted to,” Shraibman concedes. “Until Moscow has sufficient incentives to abandon its maximalist demands or Kyiv has sufficient reasons to accept them, there will be no progress, regardless of Minsk’s position.”

Still, Lukashenko’s calculation is as pragmatic as ever: if he cannot shape events, he can at least remain in the room while they unfold. And for the first time in years, Washington is letting him sit at the table.