25 political prisoners released in Belarus after negotiations with the United States

On September 16, after regular negotiations between US Presidential Special Envoy John Cole and Alexander Lukashenko, 25 political prisoners were released in Belarus. A few days earlier, journalist Andrzej Poczobut returned to Belarus for the first time since his release, and then went back to Poland without hindrance. Do these events indicate a softening of repression in the country?

“President Trump's commitment to direct diplomacy is delivering results. We thank President Lukashenko for this step, as well as our friends in Lithuania for their support,” Cole wrote in H. following the negotiations.

In response to the release of political prisoners, the United States announced the lifting of sanctions on two Belarusian enterprises - Lakokraska and the Bellesbumprom concern. Cole also added that the US authorities turned to Citibank with a request to unfreeze $44 million in Belarusian funds, which Lukashenko had previously spoken about.

Negotiations between the Cole delegation and Lukashenko took place in Minsk on September 15. A day earlier, the US Presidential Special Envoy flew to Vilnius, where he met with the head of the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry.

During the meeting, Alexander Lukashenko once again emphasized that there are no political prisoners in Belarus (“because there is no such article in our legislation”), adding that all processes in the country “are under control.”

“Our fugitives are spreading the word in the West and I feel, according to my information, you have been convinced that we are releasing someone here, but, continuing the repressions, we are detaining twice as many people in this place. I want to tell you publicly that this is absolutely untrue,” the Belarusian authoritarian leader emphasized.

According to human rights activist of the Viasna center Vladimir Labkovich, 25 released as a result of negotiations is a small number.

“Both the authorities and the regime were preparing for much greater release, but the go-ahead was given to release only people who were being expelled from the country,” he said on Euroradio.

Commenting on the release of 25 people, the leader of the democratic forces of Belarus Svetlana Tikhanovskaya noted that negotiations for their release are difficult.

“It is obvious that Lukashenko does not want to release all political prisoners,” she added.

On the day of John Cole’s arrival in Minsk, former political prisoner and activist of the Union of Poles in Belarus Andrzej Poczobut completed a week-long trip to Belarus and returned to Poland.

Poczobut, who was sentenced to eight years in prison by Belarusian authorities and released in April this year as a result of lengthy negotiations between Warsaw and Minsk, returned to Belarus for the first time since his release. He visited the office of the Union of Poles of Belarus in Grodno and planned to meet his family.

Poczobut’s return to Belarus caused active discussion in the democratic community; many did not rule out the re-detention of the journalist.

Thus, the former Ambassador of Poland to Belarus Mariusz Maszkiewicz said that Poczobut could receive “a certain kind of immunity” thanks to negotiations between the Donald Trump administration and Alexander Lukashenko. At the same time, the diplomat did not rule out that Pochobut could be deprived of his freedom again.

Commenting on the return of Andrzej Poczobut to Belarus, the leader of the democratic forces Svetlana Tikhanovskaya recalled that repressions in the country continue, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski warned other political refugees against such trips.

Previously, such a precedent occurred only once - the famous Belarusian oppositionist Nikolai Statkevich, released thanks to Cole’s negotiations with Lukashenko in a group of more than 50 political prisoners in September 2025 (they were forcibly taken to the Lithuanian-Belarusian border for deportation), refused to leave Belarus.

Then Statkevich spent about two hours on neutral territory, after which he was returned back to the colony.

Nikolai Statkevich was released in February of this year; he suffered a stroke in the colony and spent a month in intensive care.

The case of Poczobut, who after his release safely traveled to Belarus and returned back to Poland, is an exceptional case, says Alexander Klaskovsky, a political analyst at the independent Belarusian news agency Pozirk.

“Upon release, unlike many political prisoners, Poczobut insisted that he be left with his passport, and one of the high Belarusian officials, probably in consultation with Lukashenko, gave him a promise that he would be allowed into Belarus again,” Klaskovsky noted in an interview with the BBC Russian Service.

According to the analyst, Poczobut’s arrival was a test of the Belarusian regime’s ability to negotiate.

“Minsk was not interested in organizing any provocations, much less putting him behind bars again; it needed to score points in the eyes of Warsaw,” says Klaskovsky. “It is important for the Belarusian authorities to improve their image in the eyes of the Poles; they have established a negotiation process with the United States, and Europe is still firmly in the position of sanctions pressure.”

However, the isolated case of Poczobut and the release of 25 political prisoners do not give grounds to talk about a softening of repressions in Belarus.

Thus, according to the Viasna human rights center, after March 2026, when 250 people were released, human rights activists recognized another 224 people as political prisoners, and another 138 after the fact.

“This dynamics shows the main contradiction of the last two years: simultaneously with the release of some political prisoners, criminal and other persecution of new people continues,” human rights activists note.

The US Presidential Special Envoy and Lukashenko met several times. After each Cole’s visit to Belarus, a batch of political prisoners was released. In March of this year, 250 people were released, including TV channel journalist Ekaterina Andreeva, blogger Eduard Palchis and human rights activist Nasta Loiko.

At the end of August, John Cole said that he might come to Minsk in September to “achieve the release of even more political prisoners.”

“We achieved the release of five hundred [political prisoners], then about two hundred more were pardoned. So the real figure is approximately 700-800 people. I hope to soon bring it to a thousand,” he said in a comment to Voice of America (the publication is included in the Russian Federation’s register of “foreign agents”).