Lukashenko pardons 18 prisoners as Belarus seeks ties with the U.S.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko pardoned 18 prisoners in a decree announced Thursday, continuing what the Belarus government describes as steps aimed at improving ties with the United States. The decree included 15 people convicted on extremism charges, and authorities said 11 of the pardoned prisoners are women.

The latest pardons come as Belarus has released prisoners in recent months, a process encouraged by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, the Associated Press reported. Since the two leaders spoke by phone in August, Lukashenko has released 123 prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski as well as prominent opposition figures Maria Kolesnikova and Viktar Babaryka, AP reported.

In connection with those releases, the AP reported that the U.S. lifted sanctions on Belarus’ potash fertilizer production and on Belavia, the country’s flagship airline. The pardons announced Thursday bring the number of released detainees to more than 140, according to the AP report.

John Coale, the U.S. special envoy for Belarus, hailed the move on X and said it was “another notable step in the relationship between the U.S. and Belarus as President Trump has tasked me with getting all the political prisoners out.” The AP report placed the comments in the context of a broader effort to secure further releases.

Rights advocates, however, said the pace of releases does not eliminate repression. The AP reported that Viasna, a Belarusian human rights group, said 1,140 political prisoners remain behind bars. Viasna lawyer Pavel Sapelka compared the release process to what he described as a “revolving door.”

The same week the pardons were announced, the AP reported that a Belarusian court in Minsk convicted a prominent journalist and her daughter on extremism charges related to their work with a pollster that Belarusian authorities have designated as an extremist organization. The AP report said Tsina Palynskaya, 51, and Marharyta Rabinovich, 23, each received two-year prison sentences.

Earlier this week, the AP also reported that Belarusian authorities sentenced musician and poet Aleh Khamenka to three years in prison and a steep fine on charges of extremist activities tied to his cooperation with a banned radio station. The AP reported that Khamenka was detained in June after his house was raided and has spent more than half a year behind bars.

Separately, Belarusian authorities designated the PEN Belarus association of writers, with more than 100 members, as an extremist organization, according to the AP. The group’s head, Tatsyana Nyadbay, told AP by phone that the designation was “horrendous,” saying it “puts the writers who remain in Belarus at risk.” The AP report said among PEN Belarus members are Svetlana Alexievich, a 2015 Nobel Prize winner, and Bialiatski, who spent more than five years in prison on charges widely seen as politically motivated.