President Donald Trump announced Sunday that five prisoners, three Polish citizens and two Moldovans, had been freed from detention in Belarus and Russia following diplomatic efforts led by the United States. The release caps months of quiet negotiations and marks another win for the administration's approach to hostage and prisoner diplomacy abroad.
Trump posted the news on Truth Social, crediting his Special Presidential Envoy John Coale with driving the deal forward.
"We just secured the release of three Polish and two Moldovan prisoners from Belarusian and Russian detention. Thanks to my Special Presidential Envoy, John Coale, we were able to push hard to make this release happen."
The most prominent name among those freed is Andrzej Poczobut, a Polish journalist and activist who had been serving an eight-year sentence in Belarus. Poczobut, a correspondent for the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and a prominent member of Belarus's Polish minority, was arrested in 2021 after reporting on pro-democracy protests against the regime of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. He was later awarded the Sakharov Prize, the European Union's top human rights honor.
Trump said the effort to free Poczobut began with a direct appeal from Polish President Karol Nawrocki, as Fox News reported.
"My friend, President Karol Nawrocki of Poland, met with me last September and asked me to help secure Andrzej Poczobut from Belarusian prison. Today, Poczobut is free due to our efforts. The United States delivers for our Allies and Friends."
Trump also thanked Lukashenko directly, writing: "Thank you to President Aleksandr Lukashenko for his cooperation and friendship. So nice!"
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski described Poczobut as both a symbol of the fight for freedom in Belarus and an example of Poland's commitment to securing the return of its citizens. A spokesperson for Poland's Foreign Ministry said the deal involved a multi-country arrangement, with three individuals transferred from Belarus to Poland in exchange for three sent in the opposite direction, alongside others released through separate agreements.
Among those freed alongside Poczobut was Grzegorz Gawel, a Roman Catholic friar from the Carmelite order in Krakow. The names of the two Moldovan prisoners have not been publicly disclosed. Polish officials also indicated that one of the individuals involved in the exchange was a Belarusian national who had worked with Polish intelligence services.
The Sunday announcement fits a wider trend. Earlier this year, Lukashenko authorized the release of 250 political prisoners under a separate agreement with Washington that led to a partial easing of U.S. sanctions on the Belarusian regime. That deal signaled a potential opening for limited cooperation between Washington and Minsk, a notable shift given Lukashenko's role in allowing Russian forces to use Belarusian territory during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The administration has also pursued prisoner swaps tied to the broader Russia-Ukraine conflict, making hostage and detainee negotiations a recurring feature of Trump's foreign-policy approach.
Newsmax reported that negotiated prisoner releases have become a recurring part of diplomacy involving Belarus and Russia in recent years. Trump credited Coale again in that account, reinforcing the envoy's central role in the deal.
The administration's track record on this front extends beyond Eastern Europe. Earlier, the White House secured the release of an American journalist held abroad in Baghdad, part of a pattern of using direct diplomatic pressure to bring detained citizens and allies home.
Lukashenko has been in power for more than three decades, presiding over what human rights organizations describe as one of Europe's most repressive governments. Poczobut's arrest in 2021 came during a broad crackdown on journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens who challenged the results of Belarus's disputed 2020 presidential election.
That crackdown drew international condemnation but little concrete action from Western governments at the time. Poczobut's case became a cause célèbre in Poland and across the EU, but his release eluded previous diplomatic efforts.
The New York Post reported earlier this year that the Trump administration had also secured the release of three other prisoners from Belarus, including an unnamed American who wished to remain anonymous and two Belarusian political detainees, Andrei Kuznechyk, a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist imprisoned on extremism-related charges, and Alena Maushuk, jailed after protesting the 2020 election. All three were transferred to Lithuania after their release.
Taken together, these releases represent a significant diplomatic haul. The administration has now freed multiple political prisoners from Lukashenko's jails while simultaneously navigating the delicate geopolitics of the Russia-Ukraine war and Minsk's role in it.
Several details about the latest deal remain undisclosed. The identities of the two Moldovan prisoners have not been released. The specific terms of the "separate agreements" referenced by Poland's Foreign Ministry spokesperson are also unclear. And the Fox News headline referenced an American among those released from Belarus, but the body of the report focused on the five Polish and Moldovan prisoners Trump announced Sunday, leaving the connection to any American detainee unexplained in that account.
The nature and scope of the sanctions relief granted to Belarus under the earlier 250-prisoner agreement also remain opaque. It is not clear how far Washington went in easing restrictions on the Lukashenko regime, or what, if any, conditions were attached.
These are fair questions. But they should not obscure the bottom line: five people who were locked up in Belarus and Russia are now free, and the deal happened because the United States leaned in.
Trump has consistently framed foreign-policy negotiations as a matter of personal leverage and direct engagement, an approach his critics dismiss but his results keep validating. The administration has treated deal-making on the world stage not as an abstraction but as a deliverable, and the freed prisoners are the latest proof of concept.
The contrast with the previous administration's approach is hard to miss. For years, Poczobut sat in a Belarusian cell while Western governments issued statements and passed resolutions. The EU awarded him its highest human rights prize, a fine gesture, but one that did nothing to open his cell door.
What opened it was a direct request from a NATO ally to the American president, followed by sustained pressure from a presidential envoy empowered to get results. That is not how Washington usually works. It is how Washington worked this time.
Critics will question the wisdom of thanking Lukashenko. They will parse the language and debate whether the administration gave too much or asked too little. That debate is worth having. But the people who walked out of Belarusian and Russian detention facilities are not debating abstractions. They are free.
Statements and prizes are easy. Results are hard. This administration keeps choosing the hard part.
