As the bus approached the target, an escort consisting of Belarusian safety services – inactive operating under the russian name KGB – took the bags off their heads, but had them look to the floor. “But we were inactive looking around, ” says Ihar Karnei, a Belarusian writer who was among the detainees and spent 2 years in prison. “ We wondered where they were taking us,” he recalls.
‘They were scared’
The bus stopped in a field close the Belarusian border with Lithuania. erstwhile the van door opened with a bang, they heard a amazing welcome: “President Trump sent me to take you home.”
The man speaking to stunned prisoners was John Coale, 1 of president Donald Trump's lawyers, and now Deputy peculiar Envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellog. It took the prisoners a while to scope reality.
“They were terrified,” says Coale in an interview with POLITICO magazine. — beginning this door and making them aware that they are free was a truly remarkable moment.
Release of prisoners, a motion of good will from the Belarusian leader, meant the continued careful diplomatic beginning between the United States and Belarus. The strained relations between the 2 countries were at an impasse in 2020 erstwhile protests against falsified elections met with mass arrests and thousands of people were hit by an extended prison system.
However, the release would not have taken place without Coale’s efforts to establish a relation with Lukashenko, including a long lunch with toasted vodka.
— I drank 2 glasses, I did not vomit, but the 3rd 1 I gave up, says Coale.
This episode gives insight into the highly personalistic way of conducting abroad policy during Trump's second term, which has appointed many close friends and allies to the posts of his envoys and implementers of his program abroad. Critics point out their deficiency of experience; eventually, as they say with a malicious smile, whether real property magnate Steve Witkoff can truly negociate the end of Russia's war with Ukraine, address Iran's atomic program and end Israel's war in Gaza?
But the envoys give hope of direct contact with the president and the chance to bypass the State Department's bureaucracy. They can besides talk freely and do things that conventional American diplomats would not be able to do.
“It is easier to talk eye to eye with the president’s right hand,” said Artyom Shraibman, an independent scientist from Carnegie Endowment for global Peace.
The sending of a national safety advisor or secretary of state (now Marco Rubio in both cases) could be perceived as the full legitimacy of the isolated president of Belarus," said Franciszak Wiaczorka, chief of staff of Cichanouska, leader of the opposition. — But erstwhile we talk about envoys, their occupation is to make agreements, solve crises,” he added.
Sem van der Wal / ANP / AFP / AFPFrom the left: elder advisor Franciszak Wiczorka, elder advisor for abroad affairs Dzianis Kuczyński and leader of Belarusian opposition Swiatlan Cichanouska at the gathering of the abroad Affairs Committee in the home of Representatives on the current situation in Belarus, Hague, Netherlands, 20 April 2022.
Could you leave tomorrow?
Coale’s adventure in Belarus began with a April telephone call with a peculiar request from the State Department Would he be willing to go to Minsk to meet Lukashenko, a man frequently referred to as the last dictator of Europe.
“Good,” said Coale. Could he fly out the next day? “No,” he replied. “ But I did it anyway, ” he recalls.
78 years Coale is simply a direct, experienced lawyer, most likely known for helping negociate a deal with large tobacco companies at $386 billion in the late 1990s. He besides has a violent political career. As a longtime Democrat, Coale supported John McCain in 2008 and became friends with Sarah Palin , and then supported politician Martin O’Malley in the 2016 presidential election.
In 2021, he headed a non-real Trump suit against social media companies, accusing them of censorship. “The woke culture moved me to the right,” he said in 1 of his interviews. He met Trump about 20 years ago thanks to his wife Grecie Van Susteren, a erstwhile Fox News presenter who repeatedly interviewed the president.
A fewer days after Coale and respective American diplomats spoke, they crossed the border between Lithuania and Belarus. They then stopped on a agrarian road and exchanged diplomatic licence plates in their vehicles to not draw attention to themselves.
They reached the Palace of Independence, the Lukashenko residence in downtown Minsk, which thanks to the glass facade and the descending metallic roof is the size and resembles a tiny air terminal. “It’s so large that Tom Brady couldn’t throw a ball from 1 end of the hall to the other,” says Coale. According to the president of Belarus website, an awesome complex on triumph Avenue in the capital was built as a symbol of the country's independence.
This sovereignty has always been fragile. Lukashenko, 1 of Russia's closest allies Vladimir Putin, has long been relying on grants from Moscow to sustain his weakening economy. In 2022 Belarus was utilized as a base for Russian troops during a full invasion of Ukraine, which further deepened its alienation from the West.
Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since 1994 and has retained many institutions and customs from the russian past of the country. He demonstrated the ability to play Russia and the West against himself, flirting with Washington and Brussels to draw Putin's attention to himself or to get a relaxation of economical sanctions imposed on the country. Political prisoners were frequently utilized as leverage. In 2015, Lukashenko fired all those found to be wrongly detained, which prompted Europe and America to abolish any sanctions.
The postponement was to be short-lived. According to the Belarusian human rights organization Spring, over 5,000 people have been sentenced on political charges over the last 5 years and around 1150 are inactive in prison. Trump made the release of wrongfully detained Americans a precedence of his abroad policy, creating authoritarian leaders specified as Lukashenko, an chance to draw his attention to himself. During the week following Trump's inauguration in January, Belarus unilaterally released a U.S. citizen Anastasia Nuhfer.
“ Lukashenko is afraid of Trump,” said Wiczorka. He knows very well how to deal with average politicians, but he has no thought how to deal with strong and unpredictable leaders like Trump.
In February, 3 more political prisoners were released after a quiet visit to Belarus by Deputy Secretary of State Chris Smith, who was the highest-ranking American authoritative visiting the country for over 5 years. In April, they were close to releasing another American citizen and sent Coale to finalize the deal.
JIM LO SCALZO / PAPerstwhile Alaska State Governor, Sarah Palin in 2016.
“It was fun”
During a long lunch at the Coale Palace, he was tasked with gathering the talkative Belarusian leader. They told me to charm him. To talk to him, so I did. “He raised the subject of the State Department, and I said, “Yeah, all they want to do is talk, blah blah blah”, which he liked.”
Lukeenko seemed intelligent and smart to Cole. “He truly wants a better relation with the United States,” said Coale, adding that the Belarusian leader seemed willing to play a function in the negotiations on the war in Ukraine.
At 1 point vodka – the individual brand Lukashenka – appeared and toasts began. president of Belarus toasted Trump. Smith, an authoritative of the State Department, poked Coale to make this, according to local custom, a toast. Coale followed in his footsteps and made a toast to Lukashenko, but shortly afterwards he began to worry about his stomach.
As the afternoon of the toasts ended, there was more and more, and although small was discussed about politics, both men began to get to know each another better. They had a relationship. “It was fun,” said Coale.
Lukeshenko evidently shared that view. A fewer hours later, the American delegation achieved its goal erstwhile the Belarusian authorities handed over Youras Ziankovich, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was arrested in Moscow in 2021 and accused of plotting against Lukashenko. At the beginning of that year, the U.S. government found his detention unfounded.
Behind the scenes there were talks that lasted until summer, and in June there were further releases of prisoners.
Antono Vasiljev / Wikipediaindependency Palace in Minsk, Belarus, 2015
“Honey, I'm free”
When Swiatlana Cichanouska woke up on Saturday 21 June, she had no thought that she would shortly yet see her husband, Siarheej. A popular YouTube blogger was rapidly arrested after trying to run against Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election.
A quiet and gentle erstwhile teacher, who took over his function after her husband was arrested, was rapidly forced to leave for Lithuania, where he became the most recognizable face of the Belarusian opposition. For 5 years she traveled around the capitals of the planet to draw attention to the destiny of political prisoners in her country; she frequently carried a file with her husband's photo.
The day my husband was released Cichanouska returned by plane from Poland to the capital of Lithuania, Vilnius. She knew that Trump's peculiar envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, was in Belarus with Coale the erstwhile evening and that negotiations were underway on the release of prisoners. She speculated with her chief of staff, Wieczorka, who could be released, but did not dare anticipate her husband to be among them.
Siarhi, held unin contact with anyone from outside for more than 2 years, was placed on a short list of about 200 prisoners recognized by Belarusian human rights defenders as priorities for humanitarian release. Most of the 14 people to be released were citizens of another countries who were detained during repression or had any ties to the West.
It was not until this morning that she learned about the final details of the prisoners to be released.
When Cichanouska returned to Vilnius, the bus with her husband and 13 another political prisoners He was heading for the Belarusian border with Lithuania after the KGB handed them over to Coale and representatives of the State Department.
Once the prisoners had reached the border, it was a fewer hours after the last meal. Many of them were thin after years of modest prison rations. Siarhi, erstwhile a powerful man, came out of prison unrecognizable, with his cheeks collapsed. “ For any reason, 1 of our cars contained a basket of Tootsie Rolls, ” says Coale, which was separated among the members of the group. While waiting for Coale customs clearance and another diplomats made their mobile phones available so that erstwhile prisoners could call their loved ones and inform them of their release. “No 1 had any thought that this had just happened,” he said.
Cichanouska received a call from her husband at Vilnius Airport; she had not been in contact with him for more than 2 years. “ erstwhile I heard his voice, I was very surprised,” he says. He told her, “Honey, I am free.”
Radek Pietruszka / PAPLeader of the Belarusian opposition Swiatlan Cichanouska (P) and her husband Siarhi Cichanouski (L) during the Belarusian rally in front of Copernicus's monument in Warsaw, 26 June 2025.
Belarus is not Switzerland.
While Trump's efforts to end the war in Ukraine have come upon Putin's tenacity, Cichanouska hopes that her country can supply the diplomatic triumph Trump so desperately desires. “ Belarus can be president Trump’s success,” she said. — Free, independent Belarus is besides in the interests of the United States.
Lukashenko besides senses a chance to gain meaning as the president of the United States seeks an agreement between Russia and Ukraine, said Shraibman of Carnegie Endowment. “He wants to be crucial in the peace process. He wants to talk to crucial people. The same in itself is simply a reward,” said the researcher.
But Belarus is not Switzerland. “ Lukashenko is now so profoundly addicted to Putin and Russia that the United States, no substance how hard they try, is incapable to separate these 2 countries,” said Shraibman.
Coale doesn't care much about Lukashenko's diplomatic games. “ It’s Rubio’s problem, ” he says.
— I am looking at all this from the point of view of whether I can free more people," he told me. “And if that serves my intent and what I’m trying to accomplish, I don’t care.
