Belarus has released another 52 prisoners following negotiations with the US , with President Alexander Lukashenko granting pardons on what state media described as humanitarian grounds, the BelTA news agency reported on September 11.

The prisoners have already left the country and are now in Lithuania, according to Belarusian reports, and include two German nationals and one Briton.

As bne IntelliNews reported, earlier in the day, the US lifted sanctions on the state-owned national airline Belavia in what appears to be a reward for Minsk’s early warning of a Russian drone incursion into Polish airspace on September 10.

BelTA said the group included 14 foreign nationals: two Germans, six Lithuanians, one French citizen, one Briton, two Latvians and two Poles.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda confirmed the releases in a statement on X. “The released people could now leave barbed wire, barred windows, and constant fear behind them,” he wrote.

Nausėda also thanked US President Donald Trump for his role in securing the outcome. “52 is a lot. A great many. Yet more than 1,000 political prisoners are still being held in Belarusian prisons, and we must not stop until they regain their freedom,” he added.

The release comes on the heels of the release of 16 prisoners, including Sergey Tikhanovsky (Siarhei Tsikhanouskiy), the husband of Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya (Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya) in June following a US-brokered pardon after envoy Keith Kellogg met with President Lukashenko in Minsk.

That deal led some analysts to ask if Lukashenko can capitalise on a thaw in relations with the US, which is clearly trying to split Lukashenko off from his dependence on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It appears is this effort is going well. US President Donald Trump called Lukashenko from Air Force One on his way to meet Putin for the Alaska summit on August 15 can called him a “great president” in remarks to the onboard US press corps travelling with him. Subsequently, Lukashenko offered to release all 1,300 political prisoners, but only if they leave the country, as he seeks to improve ties with the Trump administration further.

 

The Viasna Human Rights Centre said that among those freed was former presidential candidate Nikolai Statkevich. There was no confirmation of the release of prominent opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova, a leading figure in the opposition movement and Tikhanovskaya’s campaign maanger during the disputed August 2020 president elections.

Trump was in direct contact with Lukashenko over the latest release, according to BelTA. The pair last month discussed further releases after the freeing Tikhanovsky. On September 11, lawyer John Coale, acting as Trump’s envoy, travelled to Minsk to deliver a personal letter signed “Donald”.

“If Donald insists that he’s ready to take all these released prisoners, God bless you, then let’s try to work out a global deal, as Mr Trump likes to say, a grand deal,” Lukashenko was quoted as saying. Coale added that Washington was seeking to reopen its embassy in Minsk, describing current ties with Belarus as “good, but not excellent”.

Lukashenko, who continues to back Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while suppressing opposition at home with brutal repressions, sought to cast the gesture as part of a broader peace effort. “Our main task is to support Trump and help him in his mission to establish peace,” he said, as quoted by Spiegel.

Sanctions on Belavia will be lifted, allowing it once again to purchase spare parts for its Boeing aircraft. However, an EU flight ban into European airspace appears to still be in effect.

The pardons come too late for the 36 year old Andrei Podnebenny who died in a Belarusian jail last week. Born in Russia, Podnebenny was a 16 year prison sentence for what government critics call politically motivated charges.

He was arrested in late 2021 during a sweeping crackdown on dissent after Lukashenko claimed victory in a disputed election the year before. A Belarusian court sentenced him in 2022 for running an “extremist” Telegram channel, vandalizing dozens of trolleybuses and setting fire to a prison authority’s car.

Podnebenny is thought to be the ninth political prisoner to have died in a Belarusian jail since 2020, according to Viasna, which had recognized him as a political prisoner.