Belarus freed 52 prisoners of various nationalities including an EU employee on Thursday after an appeal from U.S. President Donald Trump, and they headed to Lithuania with the U.S. delegation that negotiated their release, the U.S. embassy in Vilnius said.

Trump had urged Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to release detainees whom the U.S. leader has described as “hostages”. Belarus later confirmed their release.

In return for Lukashenko’s gesture, Washington will grant sanctions relief to Belarus’ national airline Belavia, allowing it to service and buy components for its aircraft, which includes Boeings, the U.S. embassy said.

BELARUS SEEKS TO REPAIR TIES WITH U.S.

It was the biggest batch of prisoners pardoned by the authoritarian leader, who is seeking to repair relations with the United States after years of isolation and sanctions on his former Soviet state.

But it was far short of the 1,300 or 1,400 prisoners whose release Trump had called for in a conversation with Lukashenko last month and in subsequent social media posts.

Those released include Ihar Losik, 33, a journalist sentenced in 2021 to 15 years in a penal colony on charges of inciting hatred and organising riots, the Belarus affairs section of the U.S. embassy in Vilnius said.

The embassy could not immediately confirm whether prominent critics of Lukashenko’s decades-old rule, such as human rights campaigner Ales Bialiatski, co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, or Maria Kalesnikava, a leader of the 2020 pro-democracy protests, were among those released.

One of the 52 ex-prisoners refused to cross with the others into Lithuania, a source familiar with the matter said. Webcam footage from the border showed a man sitting in the neutral zone between the two countries. The Belarusian rights group Viasna said it looked like Mikola Statkevich, an opposition politician.

It was not immediately clear why he had refused to cross but the exiled opposition argues that freed political prisoners should have the right to stay in Belarus rather than submit TO what it says are in effect forced deportations.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, leader of the exiled opposition whose husband Siarhei was freed from jail in June, said Thursday’s release covered only 4% of those designated as political prisoners.

By Andrius  Sytas. He covers politics and general news in the Baltics – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the three key states along the NATO’s eastern flank, the staunchest supporters of Ukraine and the most vocal critics of Russia in NATO and the European Union. He wrote stories on everything from China pressuring German companies to leave Taiwan-supporting Lithuania to Iraqi migrants hiding in the forest at the Belarus border to a farmer burning grain for heat during the energy crisis.