Belarus Frees 14 Political Prisoners Following Visit by Trump Envoy Keith Kellogg
In a striking diplomatic development, Belarus on Saturday released 14 political prisoners, including high-profile opposition figure Siarhei Tsikhanouski, following an unprecedented visit by Keith Kellogg, special envoy of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Gaze reports on this with reference to European Pravda.
Kellogg met with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk’s Palace of Independence, marking the highest-level U.S. diplomatic contact with Belarus in years.
The two sides discussed international affairs, regional security, and the state of bilateral U.S.–Belarus relations.
The visit and subsequent prisoner release are being interpreted as an effort by the Trump team to revive strategic dialogue with Minsk and loosen Belarus’s deepening ties with Moscow.
Sources close to the talks told Reuters that Trump’s advisors have been quietly exploring pathways to shift Belarus, at least partially, out of Russia’s orbit.
Among those freed was Siarhei Tsikhanouski, a video blogger and political activist sentenced to 18 years in prison after being barred from running against Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election.
His wife, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, later emerged as the face of the Belarusian democratic opposition in exile.
The release also included university lecturer Natallia Dulina, journalist Ihar Karniej, activist Akihiro Haevsky-Hanada, dual citizen Halina Krasnianskaya, and 21-year-old political prisoner Kiryl Balakhonau.
Human rights group Viasna confirmed that the former detainees were safely transported to Lithuania.
The Belarusian government has not issued a formal statement about the releases or the conditions under which they occurred. However, the timing suggests a deliberate diplomatic signal to Washington.
This is the first major U.S. engagement with Lukashenko’s regime since Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Minsk in 2020. That earlier outreach was part of a short-lived U.S. attempt to court Belarus amid its fraught relations with the Kremlin.