WARSAW: Belarus has released five prisoners in a US-brokered deal involving Russia, officials said on Tuesday, in a rare moment of diplomatic cooperation as Western efforts stall to end the war in Ukraine.
In return, Moscow and Minsk secured the return of several people held in European countries, including the release of a prominent Russian archaeologist held in Poland. “It is the finale of a two-year-long, complex diplomatic game full of dramatic twists and turns,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on X.
US special envoy to Belarus John Coale said Washington had “helped secure the release” of three Polish citizens and two Moldovans who had been held in Belarus. More than 500 political prisoners have also been released in Belarus after “more than a year” of joint negotiations, Coale told a joint news conference with Poland´s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski.
Up to 900 remain behind bars in the country, he added.
Among those released is Andrzej Poczobut, a prominent Polish-Belarusian journalist and critic of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
