The European Union will lift sanctions on Belarus and President Alexander Lukashenko for four months, Reuters reports. A decision could be made as early as next week. The EU responds to the release of Belarusian political prisoners

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko (Photo: Russian Look)

The lifting of sanctions against Lukashenko and Belarus is reported by Reuters , citing diplomatic sources. According to the agency’s interlocutors, the decision to lift sanctions could be made as early as Monday, October 12.

One of the Reuters sources said that the decision to lift sanctions will be made depending on how the presidential elections scheduled for October 11 go. “The European Union must respond to the release of Belarusian political prisoners,” the agency’s interlocutor noted.

sources Reuters clarified that the sanctions that apply to Lukashenko and another 140 citizens of Belarus will be suspended from the end of October to the end of February. This will allow those on EU sanctions lists to freely move their funds in European banks and enter the EU. Sanctions may be renewed if the European Union discovers new human rights violations in Belarus.

The agency's sources noted that some of the sanctions imposed on Belarus will continue to apply. In particular, Brussels is not going to lift the arms embargo, which prevents Minsk from selling weapons on the international market. Four employees of the Belarusian special services who were included in the sanctions list on suspicion of kidnapping Lukashenko’s political opponents will remain under sanctions. The arms export company Beltechexport will most likely remain under sanctions.

reported about the impending lifting of sanctions against Lukashenko Reuters back in mid-September . Diplomatic sources even then linked this with the release of a group of political prisoners.

At the end of August, Lukashenko pardoned six Belarusian oppositionists, including former Belarusian presidential candidate Nikolai Statkevich, who was sentenced to six years in 2011 on charges of organizing mass unrest. Oppositionists in the EU were considered political prisoners, and the decision to pardon received approval from the EU, including from the head of the European Union's foreign policy, Federica Mogherini .

Earlier this week , Lukashenko said that the Belarusian authorities had never discussed the deployment of a Russian airbase on the country's territory. At the same time, in 2014, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force, Colonel General Viktor Bondarev, stated that a Russian air base would appear in the Belarusian Bobruisk in 2016. It was planned to station Russian Su-27 fighters at the base. On September 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the signing of an agreement with Belarus on the creation of a Russian air base.

Lukashenko is one of the candidates for the upcoming presidential elections in Belarus. If he wins, Lukashenko will already have his fifth presidential term (he has led the country since 1994).

Visa sanctions against Lukashenko, a number of Belarusian officials and some Belarusian companies have been in effect since the mid-2000s. All persons on the European “black list” are prohibited from entering the EU, and their assets in the EU were frozen. Most of those on the list got there after the dispersal of opposition protests in Minsk in 2010 (the protests took place during the presidential elections). The imposition of sanctions led to Belarus recalling its diplomatic representative from the EU, and European diplomatic representatives leaving Minsk. Currently, the list of Belarusian citizens against whom personal EU sanctions have been imposed amounts to almost 250 people. The sanctions were renewed annually in October.

EU will suspend sanctions against Lukashenko