"Lukashenko Is Being Lured To The U.S. For A Reason."
- 26.03.2026, 16:14
The dictator is afraid of repeating Maduro's fate.
The presentation of the book "Belarus by Natallia Radzina" in Tallinn took place on March 19 - on the day when the special envoy of the US President John Cole visited Minsk and 250 political prisoners were released from Belarusian prisons. Editor-in-Chief of Charter97.org Natallia Radzina responded to a question about the Americans' goals in contacts with the regime in Minsk:
- It seems to me that now Putin and Lukashenko are dragging Trump into the process of some kind of negotiations that don't have much effect on anything. But in our case they are at least releasing some political prisoners. Russia is negotiating with the United States ostensibly about the war in Ukraine, while Trump is talking directly with Belarus about releasing political prisoners in exchange for lifting sanctions.
Here we face the bargaining that has always happened when Lukashenko seized political prisoners after every presidential election and then sold them in exchange for easing the sanctions regime or intensifying trade with Western countries. On the one hand, it seems to be a dead end, because we have seen this process many times. But now we are dealing with such a number of political prisoners, which has never been seen in the history of modern Belarus. Secondly, political prisoners have never spent so many years in prison - now many Belarusians are released after five or six years of imprisonment.
We see how prison has a terrible effect on people, they come out in a difficult psychological and physical state. Quite a large number of political prisoners (we can't say the exact number, but we are talking about more than 10 cases) died in prison due to lack of medical care and torture. Therefore, we welcome the fact that now some people are coming out as a result of the U.S. negotiations with Lukashenko's regime, because there is nothing more important than human life.
On the other hand, the U.S. sanctions, which were imposed against Lukashenko, do not greatly affect the situation in Belarus. More important are the sanctions imposed by the European Union. Therefore, if as a result of these negotiations, people will be released, we support it.
The coordinator of the civil campaign "European Belarus" Dzmitry Bandarenka inserted a rejoinder and put forward an interesting version of why Trump is so intensively inviting Lukashenko to the United States, and the dictator is stubborn:
- Trump's envoy Cole said: "We are persistently inviting the distinguished Alexander Lukashenko to visit Washington." And he didn't go. Lukashenko was personally invited to Trump's "Peace Council," but for some reason he declined. And now Cole is telling Lukashenko that "President Trump himself is personally reminding Mr. Lukashenko to come to Washington when there is a meeting of the Peace Council." I think Lukashenko flinched because the captured Maduro was also being negotiated with. I think he will not go to the US.