US President’s Special Envoy for Belarus John Coale responded to questions about whether one of the potential candidates in the 2020 presidential campaign, Valery Tsapkala (Valery Tsepkalo), had assisted him in negotiations with Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Earlier, Tsapkala said that he speaks with Coale about once a week and advises him.
“Dear Mr. Coale, can you confirm or deny the information that Mr. Valery Tsepkalo advised you and assisted in the matter of releasing political prisoners?” asked user @fuck_gubop on the X social network.
Several hours later, John Coale replied: “No he didn’t. This was done by me, President Trumps, Chris smith and a great team in the US government.”
The American official began receiving questions about Tsapkala after Valery Vilyamavich made a sensational statement in an interview with the YouTube channel The Insider Live. According to Tsapkala, he took an active part in the release of political prisoners and remains in constant contact with Cole.
“We speak with him roughly once a week. I asked him not to frame this topic in any political way and not even to meet with Tsikhanouskaya. For the simple reason that I understood this would derail the diplomatic efforts that had already begun, because they would definitely claim it as their own, and if that happened, the process of releasing political prisoners would immediately stop,” Tsapkala said.
It should be noted that Valery Tsapkala is not the only one to have declared involvement in the fate of political prisoners. His associate, political analyst Dzmitry Balkunets, has also claimed that he directly influenced decisions by the US president. According to him, it was thanks to Balkunets that Trump called Lukashenka. Balkunets made this claim on the YouTube channel And Graham Thundered on December 15.
“Another important event occurred on August 15 of this year. I sent a letter on behalf of the Belarusian Democratic Forum to President Trump — he was on a plane at the time, flying to Alaska. This letter reached his advisers. Literally two hours later, Trump called Lukashenka. This was the first call in history from a US president to Lukashenka. No one had ever called him for 31 years. After that, everything began to spin even more,” Balkunets said.
