From that perspective, the immediate deportation of 52 political prisoners—“bargained” out of Alexander Lukashenko by a US delegation in exchange for lifting sanctions on the state airline Belavia—paradoxically made them the freest people in Belarus.
More than a thousand other political prisoners remain behind bars, while over 9 million Belarusians, regardless of political leanings, are trapped in a system that is rapidly mutating from authoritarian to totalitarian.
Evidence of this is everywhere: facial-recognition cameras are being installed at bus stops across Minsk, state “ideologues” are placed even inside private companies, and propaganda in schools and universities has reached unprecedented levels this academic year.
More than five years after his declared victory over Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Lukashenko—still clinging to power in a Moscow-dependent puppet state— continues to tighten repression against his own people.
Reactions to Thursday’s release of prisoners are mixed. Apart from regime propagandists, nearly everyone welcomed the liberation of dozens of men and women serving long political sentences.
Yet on Belarusian social media, the mood remains one of cautious pessimism. Each week, human rights groups add new names to the list of Lukashenko’s hostages, sentenced by his pocket courts to many years in prison.
It seems the dictator still has plenty of “human cargo” to trade with the West. Every new batch of regime slaves “purchased” in exchange for easing sanctions only strengthens Lukashenko—economically and politically.
Belarusians see clearly that Washington is shifting away from principle toward “deal-making” in the name of business interests.
Yet this bitter pill may prove a hidden blessing, nudging Belarusians to recognize that true agency does not come from outside but depends on the nation’s own will and resolve.
For some, that realization has already taken hold. On Thursday night, Belarusians raised EUR 50,000 for the freed prisoners in just three hours. By Friday morning, donations had reached EUR 78,000—a first lifeline for those deported without passports or documents.
Solidarity, it turns out, is no longer an empty slogan for Belarusians. And that gives hope that one day the entire country will break free from its national prison.
Jan Krzysztof Michalak in Belarus