Trump says Belarus, Russia free five prisoners in detainee deal

President Donald Trump said Belarus and Russia had freed five prisoners, three Poles and two Moldovans, in a detainee deal that put John Coale at the center of the negotiations and again linked prisoner releases to broader bargaining with Minsk.

Trump credited his special presidential envoy, John Coale, for helping secure the releases and thanked Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko for his cooperation. He also referred to Andrzej Poczobut, the Polish-Belarusian journalist and activist whose case has become one of the clearest symbols of Minsk’s use of prisoners as diplomatic currency. In his post, Trump said Polish President Karol Nawrocki had asked him last September to help secure Poczobut’s release.

The announcement carried weight beyond the fate of five detainees. It suggested that Washington has preserved a working channel with Belarus, and possibly Russia, even as the two governments remain locked in confrontation with the West. That channel has already been used before. Reuters reported that Belarus released 52 prisoners on Sept. 11, 2025, after Trump appealed for the move, and that the United States eased sanctions on Belavia in return. Reuters also said Trump had been pressing for the release of roughly 1,300 to 1,400 prisoners, showing that the negotiations have stretched beyond a one-off humanitarian gesture.

Poczobut’s case illustrates how personal freedom, press freedom and statecraft have become intertwined. The Committee to Protect Journalists said he had been detained since March 2021 and was sentenced in February 2023 to eight years in prison. His case stemmed from his reporting on Belarus’s 2020 anti-government protests and his defense of the Belarusian Polish minority. Donald Tusk had already announced Poczobut’s release on April 28 as part of a 10-prisoner swap involving multiple countries, including the United States, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

The broader pattern is difficult to miss. Belarus has released hundreds of prisoners over the past two years, often in exchanges that also include forced exile or political signaling. Reuters reported that John Coale led a U.S. delegation to Minsk in 2025 with Christopher Smith, reinforcing the view that the latest release is part of an ongoing negotiation track. For Poland and Moldova, the freed prisoners mark an immediate human gain. For Washington, the deal suggests that prisoner diplomacy remains one of the few active channels between the United States and the Belarusian state.