Evgeny Afnagel: Lukashenko Has No Other Choice
- 29.04.2026, 14:56
The world is changing rapidly, and these changes are bound to affect Belarus.
On the Polish-Belarusian border an exchange of prisoners according to the formula "five by five" took place. As a result, the journalist and leader of the Polish diaspora in Belarus Andrzej Poczobut, who is already in Poland, was released.
What does the release of Andrzej Poczobut mean for Belarusians? The site Charter97.org talked to former political prisoner, coordinator of the civil campaign "European Belarus" Evgeny Afnagel about it:
- First of all, I would like to congratulate Andrzej Poczobut, other political prisoners who were released, and their families on this joyful event - with the release. This is long-awaited and good news for all Belarusians, it shows that everything is possible, everything is in our power. A year ago, many people thought that it was difficult or practically impossible to release political prisoners, that Andrzej and those people who were released before him would sit until the end of their term, and perhaps even longer, because many were facing new criminal cases.
Now we see that political prisoners are released, and the situation in the region and in the world is changing very quickly. And this not only gives us hope that changes are waiting for us, but also gives us confidence that everything will work out, that everything is in our power, everything is in our hands.
- Why did Lukashenko have to release Andrzej Poczobut now - what led to it?
- Lukashenko is forced to release not only Andrzej Poczobut, he is forced to release other political prisoners, to make concessions, because he understands what is going on around him.
Ukraine is daily striking at one of the main pain points of Russia - the oil industry and logistics. Ports in Tuapse, Ust-Luga, and Novorossiysk are on fire. Exports of oil from Russia have collapsed by nearly a quarter. Military spending is on the rise. The federal budget deficit in January-March reached 4.5 trillion rubles. Against the background of all this, pro-government celebrities, journalists, bloggers, and military officers are already talking openly about the possibility of a revolution or a palace coup.
News disturbing for Lukashenko are coming from other countries as well. Maduro's arrest, Khamenei's liquidation, the brilliant victory of pro-European forces in Hungary. And he has not yet recovered from flashbacks to 2020.
The world is changing rapidly, and these changes are bound to affect Belarus. Lukashenko realizes that his turn will come soon. The release of political prisoners, his attempts to flirt with the Trump administration are a consequence of his fear of the future, an attempt to insure himself.
- US presidential special envoy John Cole said that all Belarusian political prisoners could be released by the end of the year - how realistic is it and what should be done to make it happen?
- Here it is important to note that we are talking about those political prisoners who are on the official lists of human rights organizations. Besides them, there are hundreds of people in Belarus serving sentences for participation in protests, for helping Ukraine, but we don't even know their names or their exact number.
That's why I would like to appeal to relatives of political prisoners: maximum publicity is the key to the freedom of your loved ones. If nothing is known about a person, and there were many such people even when I was serving my sentence in a colony, in prison, it will be much more difficult to obtain their release.
It is necessary to continue pressure on the regime and at the same time negotiate with it on the release of all political prisoners and the cessation of repression. I am sure that by the end of the year all prisoners who are on the lists of human rights organizations will be released from prisons. This is quite realistic. Lukashenko has no other choice but to start unscrewing the screws, because otherwise the fate of Maduro - at best, and Khamenei - at worst - awaits him.