Belarus opposition warns against concessions to Lukashenko over release of US prisoner

By Mark Trevelyan

(Reuters) - The United States should not be "fooled" by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko into offering concessions following the release of a U.S. prisoner freed as a gift to Donald Trump, a senior aide to the exiled opposition leader of Belarus said.

U.S. officials announced on Wednesday the release of Youras Ziankovich, 47, a naturalised American jailed in Belarus on charges of conspiring to kill Lukashenko and stage a coup. Belarus said it freed him at the request of the U.S.

The release came just ahead of a visit to Washington by position leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, exiled since a 2020 presidential election her supporters say was stolen from her.

"Ziankovich is already in the States, safe, the hell for him is over. The regime tried to break him, forced him to confess, record videos for propaganda, but I am glad that his moral spirit is OK," Tsikhanouskaya's chief political adviser Franak Viacorka told Reuters.

"No doubt that it’s a sort of 'present' to the American administration... but let's not be fooled," he said. "We can speak about concessions only when all or a majority of political prisoners are free, and we are not yet there."

Tsikhanouskaya, who welcomed the release of Ziankovich and thanked Trump and his team for their efforts to get him out, said she is visiting the U.S. "to strengthen support for democratic Belarus".

She says more than 1,200 political prisoners are still jailed in the former Soviet state, which rounded up all notable opponents of Lukashenko in a violent crackdown on protests after the 2020 vote.

Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, extended his 31-year rule in another election in January this year that Western countries called a sham. He denies Belarus holds political prisoners.

Ziankovich was shown on Belarus state TV in prison in September 2024 confessing to the alleged plot and asking for a pardon. His appearance - pale, gaunt and wispy-haired - was almost unrecognisable from pictures taken several years earlier.

For years, the West has treated Lukashenko as a pariah and imposed waves of sanctions on Belarus. The U.S. has had no ambassador there since 2008.

Ivan Kravtsov, secretary of the opposition's coordination council in exile, said the release of Ziankovich was part of a Lukashenko strategy to re-engage with Washington by offering a quick win to Trump. He speculated Washington might respond by returning some diplomats to Minsk, but said Lukashenko would face a challenge keeping the U.S. president's interest.

"It could stall at any moment, and I think Lukashenko also understands that - that's probably why he's doing these unilateral gestures."

Dmitry Bolkunets, another exiled opposition activist, said Lukashenko "wants to make peace with the Americans", but his room for manoeuvre was limited by his dependence on Moscow.

"The Kremlin will not allow Lukashenko to act as an independent political figure."

(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Peter Graff)