Belarus frees 123 prisoners in exchange for lifting of US sanctions

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00:00For you this hour, Belarus today freed over 120 political prisoners in return for the U.S. easing

00:04sanctions. They included Maria Kolesnikava, a prominent leader of street protests against

00:09Lukashenko in 2020, a human rights campaigner and Nobel Prize laureate, and Viktor Babaryika,

00:16who had attempted to run against Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election. While Bialatsky,

00:22the Nobel Prize laureate, and eight other prisoners have gone to Lithuania, 114 of them fled to

00:28Ukraine. Here is our U.S., the U.S. envoy, rather, to Belarus. But that's the reason that the sanctions

00:35are there, or mainly because of what happened when most of these people were put in prison.

00:43So they're related. So you expect most of the sanctions to get released,

00:48removed after the prisoners are released? I hope so. I think it's a fair trade.

00:54Well, for more, we're going to speak now to our international affairs editor,

00:58Philip Turrell. Hi, Philip. So what else do we know then about those who were released and where

01:03they are now? Well, this is very interesting. If you look at the timing, it's just coming

01:0612 days before Christmas. So it's like an early Christmas present for the families and friends

01:12of all of those who've been released from jail in Belarus. Before we go into the actual reasons

01:17before that, there are some very important figures who have been released from jail. As you were saying,

01:23Maria Koniskova, who is 43, she was one of the key opposition figures in the mass process

01:29in 2020 and ally of the main opposition leader in exile. It was her who went to the border with

01:38Lithuania and tore up her passport. She was being kicked out of the country and then walked back into

01:42Belarus and was then put back in jail. There have been lots of worries about the state of health that

01:47she was in, the way she was being treated. So I think this will be an enormous relief to her family

01:52that she's now free. There's also the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Laureate, Alice Bilioterski,

01:58who is 63, who's been in prison for 1,600 days. Also many questions being raised about what sort of

02:05state he's in physically. He was in Gorky, which is a notorious prison for its beatings and hard labor.

02:12So he's also been set free. Another opposition leader, Victor Babarico, who was a

02:17major challenger to Alexander Lukashenko in the elections in 2020, running for the post of

02:22president. And he has also been free today. Now, originally, the plan was for all of these

02:28prisoners, 123 or so in all to be released to Lithuania. It now appears that most of them have

02:37been sent to Ukraine, including five Ukrainian nationals, all the others, only seven, and the

02:46Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Alice Bilioterski, has been sent to Lithuania. So that is what has

02:55happened today. I think a lot of relief for many of the families there. But this is really a momentous

02:59occasion for these prisoners because they've been freed. And something that was totally unexpected

03:04ahead of these discussions between the United States and the authorities in Belarus.

03:09You said it was totally kind of unexpected, Philip. So what were the conditions, you know,

03:15elaborated on by the Americans and the Belarusian government leading up to these releases?

03:18Well, this is also very interesting. This is, as we were just hearing from John Cole,

03:22the US special envoy for Belarus, who met with Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk. He basically was saying,

03:29look, what we're going to do is we're going to lift sanctions, US sanctions on potash, which is a key

03:35fertilizer, which is one of the main exports or important export for Belarus, which will then be able

03:43to be exported to the United States. And that is something that will profit the Belarusian authorities

03:49about it. It accounts for about 20 percent of global potash fertilizer in the world, the what is

03:57produced in Belarus. So this will be a huge windfall for the country. There were also sanctions imposed

04:04on potash by the European Union. Those have not been lifted. And I think more important, the sanctions

04:09on the part of the European Union on potash than those from the United States. But I think the underlying

04:14message here on the part of the US is that there are links between this and the war in Ukraine,

04:19the pressure on Vladimir Zelensky, the US drive to sort of isolate and divide Europe by saying,

04:27OK, we can go in directly and negotiate with the Belarusians. Of course, this is not happening

04:31without the agreement of the Russians, who have a lot of impact on what goes on in Belarus and all

04:37the decisions that Alexander Lukashenko takes. But it's basically saying, talk to the US. If you do,

04:43you can get things done. We're the ones you need to talk to. And that's what's going to happen. So

04:47we're talking here about not only these prisons being freed, the lifting of these sanctions,

04:51hopefully more sanctions being lifted in the future. But also, this may have ramifications

04:56on the peace process that's also taking place in Ukraine. Philip Daryl, thank you very much.

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