Belarus released 123 political prisoners on Dec. 13-14, 2025, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski and prominent opposition figures Maria Kalesnikava (Kolesnikova) and Viktar Babaryka, after talks brokered by a U.S. envoy, John Coale, representing the Trump administration. Most of those freed — 114 — were taken to Ukraine and nine to Lithuania, with others going to third countries. The move followed U.S. signals it would partially lift sanctions on Belarus’s potash sector, a key export, in return for the mass release. Survivors described harsh prison conditions; Bialiatski, in interviews in Vilnius, recounted solitary confinement, poor medical care and sudden blindfolded transfers. Rights groups warn more than 1,100 political prisoners remain inside Belarus. Germany’s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt on Dec. 15 said Berlin would offer refuge to Kalesnikava and Babaryka. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s concession is being framed by Minsk as a step toward rapprochement with the West even as critics say repression continues and new arrests persist.