Trump Sends Envoy to Belarus, Courting Ties With Russia’s Close Ally

Europe|Trump Sends Envoy to Belarus, Courting Ties With Russia’s Close Ally

Unable to broker peace deals in Ukraine and the Middle East, President Trump sent a special envoy to Belarus for talks on Saturday with President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, Russia’s closest ally and a central figure in a decades long struggle between East and West in the former Soviet Union.

Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general and Mr. Trump’s envoy for Russia and Ukraine, held talks with Mr. Lukashenko in Minsk, Belarus’s capital, the first meeting between a senior White House official and the Belarusian strongman in more than five years.

Mr. Kellogg’s visit signaled a sharp turn away from the Biden administration’s policy of trying to isolate and punish Belarus by tightening economic sanctions.

There was no immediate sign that Washington would ease sanctions on Belarus. But John Coale, Mr. Kellogg’s deputy, said the visit to Minsk had secured the release of 14 political prisoners from Belarusian jails. “The United States is now strong so we can get these kind of things done,” Mr. Coale said in a video posted on social media.

The freed prisoners, who arrived in neighboring Lithuania by car on Saturday afternoon, included Sergei Tikhanovsky, a dissident and the husband of the exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.

Mr. Kellogg met Mr. Lukashenko in the Belarusian leader’s vast, marble-clad official residence, the Independence Palace. “With all the gold here this looks a lot like Mar-a-Lago,” Mr. Kellogg was heard telling Mr. Lukashenko in a video released by Belarusian state media.