The United States lifts sanctions on Belarusian potassium (potash). US envoy to Belarus John Coale said this on Saturday in the capital Minsk, after two days of consultations with Belarusian President Alexandr Lukashenko. Belarus releases 123 prisoners in return. These include Nobel Prize winner Ales Bialiatski and opposition member Maria Kolesnikova.
According to research agency Grand View Research Belarus generated a turnover of $176.1 million from potash last year. That amount is expected to rise to $244.9 million in 2032. The Eastern European country is the largest producer of potash after Canada and Russia, which is mainly used in fertilizer.
The US and the European Union imposed new sanctions on the country in 2022 because the government allowed Russian soldiers to attack Ukraine from Belarus. Lukashenko has close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Bialiatsky and Kolesnikova
Bialiatsky, who will be released, was the leader of human rights organization Viasna and one of Lukashenko’s most prominent critics. In 2023, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for tax evasion and financing protests. According to Bialiatski and Amnesty International, the trial was political in nature. The human rights organization denied legitimacy of the charges against the activist in full.
In 2022, Bialiatski won the Nobel Peace Prize together with other activists for his commitment to “human rights, democracy and peaceful coexistence in the neighboring countries of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.” He could not receive that award himself, because he had already been locked up since 2021.
Kolesnikova led the massive street protests in 2020 surrounding the fraudulent election of Belarusian leader Lukashenko. In 2021, she was sentenced to eleven years in prison for founding an extremist organization, calling for actions that threaten national security and plotting a coup. Kolesnikova was a close campaign aide of presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who fled to Lithuania in 2020.
A thousand opponents captured
Just before the 2020 presidential elections, Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, arrested his main challengers, after which large protests broke out, which were severely suppressed. About a thousand political opponents are still in prison.
Lukashenko has been trying to break his international isolation for years. He has recently released political prisoners several times. Formally for “humanitarian reasons”, but probably to curry favor with American President Donald Trump. The Belarusian leader presents himself to the West as an approachable figure who can mediate with Russia. US President Donald Trump previously called Lukashenko a “highly respected” and “powerful” president.
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By releasing political prisoners, Lukashenko hopes to gain favor with Trump
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