{"id":524788,"date":"2026-03-11T19:07:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T16:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=524788"},"modified":"2026-03-11T20:35:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T17:35:54","slug":"calls-to-involve-europe-in-political-prisoner-releases-complicate-u-s-efforts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/calls-to-involve-europe-in-political-prisoner-releases-complicate-u-s-efforts","title":{"rendered":"Calls To Involve Europe In Political Prisoner Releases Complicate U.S. Efforts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In recent months, some Belarusian democratic activists have run a fairly aggressive campaign urging European politicians to follow a parallel track with Washington: enter negotiations with Alyaksandr Lukashenka<\/b>, ease his regime\u2019s isolation and partially or fully lift sanctions. The idea was that this could help secure the release of more political prisoners from Belarusian jails. In practice, however, the approach appears to have produced the opposite result.<\/p>\n

The American Track<\/strong><\/p>\n

For more than half a year, the United States has been engaged in dialogue with the Belarusian regime. As a result of that communication, a number of Belarusian political prisoners have been released, albeit with many of them expelled from the country. Washington has the desire, ambition and, apparently, the tools to push for the release of people.<\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump<\/b>, by citing the figure of 1,300 prisoners, signaled that the goal is the release of all political detainees. The U.S. special envoy on Belarus, John Coale<\/b>, confirmed this, saying: \u201cPresident Trump has instructed me to secure the release of all political prisoners.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

At the same time, it is difficult for Lukashenka to abandon the American track \u2014 at this stage it is beneficial for him, for a number of reasons, to build relations with the United States. Even if the release of prisoners is not the primary objective for Trump and his team but rather a secondary result of talks with official Minsk, the process nevertheless began to produce tangible outcomes.<\/p>\n

Then circumstances emerged that influenced the process.<\/p>\n

Pushing Europe Toward Lukashenka<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some Belarusian democratic activists began advocating that Europeans join the U.S. approach toward official Minsk. According to this group, if the European Union entered into dialogue with the Belarusian regime and showed readiness to make concessions to Lukashenka, it could at least secure the release of the remaining political prisoners and reduce the level of repression in the country.<\/p>\n

To be fair, voices in European capitals calling for engagement with the Belarusian regime had existed before. Recently, however, they became louder and more influential, particularly after some well-known former political prisoners \u2014 released through the U.S. negotiation track \u2014 supported such an approach.<\/p>\n

An alternative approach remains one in which roles are divided: the United States acts as the \u201cgood cop,\u201d while the European Union plays the \u201cbad cop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rising Expectations In Minsk<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, official Minsk appears to have developed hope that it might still be possible to pressure Europeans. The regime then began a series of provocations, including incidents with meteorological balloons, apparently attempting to push Lithuania and Poland into negotiations.<\/p>\n

Evidence that Minsk expects a favorable outcome on the European front can also be seen in a recent statement by Belarusian Foreign Minister Maksim Ryzhankou<\/b>. Disregarding diplomatic conventions and effectively acknowledging a bargaining process involving political prisoners, he stated openly that the regime expects reciprocal steps from Europe in exchange for releasing detainees.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou wanted certain people to be released \u2014 people who nearly brought our country to collapse. Well, they were released. Now where is your reaction to these humanitarian steps taken by our president? There is none,\u201d<\/i> Ryzhankou said.<\/p>\n

Shortly afterward, Prime Minister Alyaksandr Turchyn<\/b> instructed Belarusian diplomats to persistently explain to their European counterparts the futility of sanctions.<\/p>\n

The message is clear: Minsk believes it sees an opportunity to move communication with Europe off the deadlock and secure concessions not only from the United States but also from the European Union. The regime does not intend to miss that opportunity. As the saying goes: money first, chairs later.<\/p>\n

As a result, the process of releasing political prisoners has slowed. People are freed in small groups mainly to sustain U.S. interest in the negotiations, while most prisoners remain behind bars as leverage in hopes of extracting concessions from Europe. Meanwhile, repression inside the country has not decreased \u2014 the regime continues to detain new hostages with the intention of bargaining for them later.<\/p>\n

A Disservice<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the same time, Europe still shows little desire to enter into dialogue with Lukashenka and his officials. The main reason is the perception that the Belarusian leader lacks political autonomy. Additional factors include official Minsk\u2019s support for Russia\u2019s aggression against Ukraine, the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons and the \u201cOreshnik\u201d missile system in Belarus, the continuing migration crisis at EU borders, and repeated provocations toward neighboring countries.<\/p>\n

The positions of Poland and Lithuania \u2014 Belarus\u2019s closest neighbors and key influences on EU policy toward Minsk \u2014 are becoming increasingly strict. Nothing suggests that this stance will change significantly in the near future.<\/p>\n

As a result, the attempt to involve Europe in the process of freeing political prisoners may have turned into a disservice. Rather than accelerating the process, it has slowed it down \u2014 including on the American side.<\/p>\n

The regime will likely continue to stall, releasing prisoners in small groups while hoping to extract additional concessions from Europe. Without the hope of European concessions, Washington might have achieved more.<\/p>\n

Instead, the situation has become more complicated. The Belarusian regime will not stop until it either achieves its goals or finally loses hope of forcing Europe to yield. In retrospect, perhaps the American track should not have been complicated by attempts to bring Europe into the negotiations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recent months, some Belarusian democratic activists have run a fairly aggressive campaign urging European politicians to follow a parallel track with Washington: enter negotiations with Alyaksandr Lukashenka, ease his regime\u2019s isolation and partially or fully lift sanctions. The idea was that this could help secure the release of more political prisoners from Belarusian jails. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":524798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/69b1a8010cef8.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Calls To Involve Europe In Political Prisoner Releases Complicate U.S. Efforts"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142376,142339,142338,143090],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-524788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comment","category-main","category-news","category-politics"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}