Belarus, the closest Russian ally, released an American prisoner and two other prison, said an opposition group exiled on Wednesday in the latest sign that the autocratic Betarus President Aleksanddr G. Lukashenko was looking for ways to see how To improve frozen relations with the West.
The edition that was announced by the opposition group led by Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in Lithuania, the neighbor of Belarus, followed what Western diplomats said on Wednesday that a secret visit to Minsk, the Belarusian capital, the US Deputy Foreign Minister, the US Deputy Minister, the US representative State Secretary, US Deputy National Secretary, US Deputy National Secretary, US Deputy State Secretary, US Deputy State Secretary of the US Deputy Prosecutor of the state secretary of the US Deputy Minister Christopher W. Smith. The group did not identify an American who was liberated.
The Foreign Ministry did not respond to reports that Mr. Smith traveled to Minsk, in what the US official of the highest level in Belarus would be, because Mike Pompeo, the State Secretary during President Trump’s first administration, went there, went there in 2020 they try to “normalize” ties.
Mr. Smith, a delay in Biden Administration, helped last month to ensure the release of another American citizen held in Belarus, Anastassia Nuhfer.
Franak Viacorka, Chief of Staff Mrs. Tikhanovskaya, said in Video published on a telegram That he visited the US Embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania and picked up one of the people who said he was released, Alena Movshuk, described as an activist.
Freed American did not change, but said that the third person who was exempt was Andrey Kuznechyk, a journalist with the Belarus service Radio Free Europe, an American intelligence organization.
Lithuanian government officials said an American citizen entered the Baltic nation from Belarus on Wednesday. They didn’t even give a name. They said Mr. Smith was now in Vilnius and on Thursday there are meetings with European diplomats.
From Mr. Pompe to Minsk in February 2020, relations between Belarus and West went from bad to worse, poisoned by Mr. Lukashen Brutal intervention On the nationwide street Protests after he claims that his opponents and Western governments were a presidential election in August 2020.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which was partially launched from the Belarusian territory, has expanded relations further. The United States closed their embassy in Minsk soon after the start of the invasion.
In recent months, however, a slow but permanent stream of prisoners, mostly people trapped as involved in protests by 2020, in what analysts and opposition activists consider to be Mr. Lukashen’s efforts to get their country from cold.
Mr. Lukashenko, long set to become too dependent on Russia for economic and safety support, has a long history maneuver between East and WestThe game that suddenly ended after the 2020 elections, but now it seems to be eagerly reviving.
Soon the rival in the 2020 race was Sergei Tikhanovsky, but was arrested shortly after announced his candidacy and later sentenced to 18 years in prison where he stays. Mrs. Tikhanovskaya, his wife, became a candidate in his place, but shortly after the elections fled the country and was sentenced to 15 years in absence.
With all his prominent criticisms who were introduced into exile or imprisoned and all potential rivals left in the presidential election last month, Mr. Lukashenko Sailed to the next victory of land landslideIts seventh in a row, with 87 percent of the votes – even more than 81 percent, which he claimed in the controversial elections by 2020.
