The Trump administration prepares a deal with Belarus: weakening of sanctions in exchange for the release of political prisoners - NYT

The Donald Trump administration prepares a large -scale deal with Alexander Lukashenko, which involves weakening sanctions against Belarus in exchange for the release of political prisoners. According to The New York Times, Christopher Smith told the deputy assistant to the US Secretary of State for Eastern Europe during a meeting with Western diplomats in Vilnius.

The people present at this meeting told the newspaper that Washington proposed to weaken sanctions against Belarusian banks and restrictions imposed on potassium fertilizer export, which is a large manufacturer of which Belarus is. It is claimed that Lukashenko assured Smith that he was ready to soften repression. The American diplomat said that the main goals of the United States are to release a large number of political prisoners and to "give Lukashenko some respite outside the orbit of Russia."

According to NYT, Christopher Smith visited Minsk on February 12 and met with Lukashenko and the head of the KGB Ivan Teretel. The publication notes that representatives of the State Department have not met with the ruler of Belarus for the past five years. According to the results of this meeting, a US citizen, as well as a journalist of the Belarusian Radio Liberty, Andrei Kuznechik and activist Elena Movshuk, were released from the Belarusian prisons. Their release was reported on February 12. Nyt writes that all three on the same day handed over to the Americans who took them with them to Lithuania.

A few days before Smith's trip to Minsk, Donald Trump talked on the phone with Vladimir Putin. The US President said Putin wants peace. Trump also stated that he has a plan at the end of the war in Ukraine, but did not specify what this plan is. On February 15, a telephone conversation took place between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “The heads of foreign policy departments agreed to maintain a communication channel to solve accumulated problems in Russian-American relations in the interests of removing unilateral barriers inherited from the previous administration on the path of mutually beneficial cooperation. A mutual mood for interaction on topical international topics is indicated, including settlement around Ukraine, ”the Russian Foreign Ministry said following this conversation.