Lithuania skeptical of US efforts to distance Belarus from Russia

ISTANBUL

Lithuania’s president has voiced skepticism over US efforts to distance Belarus from Russia through intensified dialogue with Minsk.

"This is how the United States is trying to separate Belarus from Russia, and I think we will have the opportunity to see whether such a policy yields real results," Gitanas Nauseda told broadcaster LRT on Monday, a day after US President Donald Trump announced that he is nominating lawyer John Coale as special envoy to Belarus for the release of additional prisoners.

Nauseda, however, expressed doubt that Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko would distance himself from Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that Belarus is “entirely dependent” on Moscow “financially and economically.”

"I am absolutely convinced that this is impossible because the ties of dependence are so close and numerous that even if he wanted to, Lukashenko could not break away from Putin," he said.

Nauseda called the humanitarian objectives pursued by Washington “very important and commendable,” but argued that the Belarusian government’s gestures of leniency are not genuine.

"The problem is that while some prisoners are released, hundreds of new ones are thrown into jail right away … These exchanges can go on endlessly, and the outcome will be very difficult to measure," he added.

In September, 52 political prisoners were freed from prisons in Belarus, a former Soviet republic, like Lithuania, in exchange for sanctions relief from the US.