Lukashenko reaches deal with U.S. to return frozen Belarusian funds

At the same time, Washington is seeking to persuade Minsk to release more political prisoners, Reuters reports.

Coale made the pledge during talks with Lukashenko in Minsk, which have resumed for the first time in six months. However, it is not known whether the Belarusian president agreed in return to release more prisoners, the agency reports.

According to footage of the meeting, Coale said Washington had asked U.S. banks to unblock Belarusian funds that had been frozen and that a mechanism for returning the money was currently being worked out.

Last week, Lukashenko requested the return of between $43 million and $44 million that he claims belongs to Belarus and is “trapped” in a Citibank account.

During his meeting with Coale, the Belarusian president rejected claims by the opposition and human rights organizations that the authorities were arresting new people to replace prisoners who had been released.

“I want to say publicly that this is absolutely untrue. We have no goal of sending new people to penal colonies in place of those who have been released,” Lukashenko said.

The Belarusian human rights organization Viasna, which is banned in Belarus, says more than 900 political prisoners remain in the country. According to its data, the number of political prisoners fell from 1,185 in early June 2025 to 912, despite Coale saying he had helped secure the release of between 700 and 800 people since the middle of last year, Reuters reports.

Belarusian opposition leader in exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said that the release of prisoners should not be confused with political change.

“Every opportunity to save lives should be used. But we should not confuse releases with political change. The repression continues,” Tsikhanouskaya told Reuters.

She called for an end to what she described as a “rotation of prisoners,” in which new people are arrested after some prisoners are released.

The talks between Lukashenko and Coale took place after a six-month hiatus. During previous contacts with the Belarusian authorities, Coale helped secure the release of hundreds of prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski and prominent opposition figures.

According to the Belta news agency, during the meeting in Minsk, the U.S. special envoy for Belarus conveyed personal greetings from U.S. President Donald Trump to Lukashenko, saying that Trump “fully supports all joint efforts.”

Alongside Lukashenko, Belarusian Prime Minister Alexander Turchin, KGB Chairman Ivan Tertel, and Belarus’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Valentin Rybakov are taking part in the talks with the U.S. delegation.

Earlier today, the Belarusian president reiterated that Minsk is fully open to dialogue with Washington on all outstanding issues, but explicitly stressed that previously undertaken commitments and agreements must be strictly respected.