Cole Announced The Imminent Release Of Political Prisoners In Belarus

Trump's special representative answered the question in the affirmative.

The Special Representative of U.S. President Donald Trump for Belarus John Cole replied with a brief “yes” to a question from social media user X Yana Kovaleva: “Dear Mr. Cole, can we hope for the release of political prisoners in the near future?”

The online exchange took place on the night of August 16, according to “Pozirk”.

On July 26, Kovaleva appealed to Cole to help her brother Ilya Veremeev and “all political prisoners in Belarus.” Cole did not respond (in August 2022, Veremeev was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for messages posted in Telegram chats in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine; he was 18 years old at the time of his arrest; according to human rights activists, he is currently being held in a punishment cell).

Cole was last in Minsk in March. The outcome was the release of 250 political prisoners, of whom only 15 were deported abroad, as was the case with all the others who were released following negotiations with Washington (with the exception of Nikolai Statkevich). In return, the U.S. lifted certain sanctions against Belarus.

On April 28, a multilateral “5-for-5” exchange took place at the Belarusian-Polish border. Among those released was political prisoner, a Belarusian journalist of Polish descent Andrzej Pochobut.

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