{"id":19459,"date":"2025-09-25T20:23:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T19:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/?p=19459"},"modified":"2025-09-25T08:27:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T07:27:16","slug":"leader-of-belarus-opposition-warns-trump-beware-of-her-nations-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/25\/leader-of-belarus-opposition-warns-trump-beware-of-her-nations-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Leader of Belarus opposition warns Trump: Beware of her nation’s president"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Belarusian president, whose iron-fisted rule earned him the nickname of \u201cEurope\u2019s Last Dictator,\u201d wants to fool President Donald Trump with gestures like prisoner releases, the exiled leader of Belarus\u2019 opposition told The Associated Press on Wednesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump<\/a> warmed U.S. relations with President Alexander Lukashenko<\/a> this month by easing sanctions in exchange for the three-decade president\u2019s release of some political prisoners. The deal allows Belarus to repair and buy parts for its Boeing aircraft and other planes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump praised the two leaders\u2019 personal relationship, reporting a \u201cwonderful talk\u201d with Lukashenko, thanking him and saying he looked forward to another meeting with the man whom much of the Western world largely shuns. Lukashenko still holds about 1,200 political prisoners, according to human rights advocates, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski and some top opposition activists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya fled Belarus under government pressure after running against Lukashenko in 2020. That election gave him his sixth term in office and triggered the largest wave of mass protests in Belarus\u2019 history. His government responded to peaceful demonstrations with a brutal crackdown, arresting tens of thousands of people and driving even more out of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While thanking Trump Wednesday for winning prisoner releases, she also warned the United States \u201cnot to pay too much\u201d for the small number of people the Belarusian leader has so far been willing to free. More than 50 prisoners were freed<\/a> in the most recent release and, overall, Lukashenko has released more than 300 people over the past year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI suppose that it\u2019s the intention of Lukashenko to fool President Trump,\u201d she said. \u201cYou know, he wants to buy a Lamborghini for 2,000 Euros, taking a lot and not giving anything.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tsikhanouskaya encouraged the U.S. administration to keep working on freeing prisoners while there is still an opportunity, saying, \u201cpeople are dying in prisons.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the opposition leader noted that despite the releases, the crackdown in Belarus continues. As some prisoners are released, many more are being jailed in a clampdown that she compared to a \u201crevolving door.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why we need … consistent and irreversible changes, not to let this regime to take more and more and more hostages to sell them for higher price,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump surprised some at the U.N. on Tuesday when he said he believed Ukraine could win back all territory lost to Russia in more that a decade at war, a dramatic shift from his repeated calls for Kyiv to make concessions<\/a> to end the war sparked by President Vladimir Putin\u2019s February 2022 invasion of its smaller neighbor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tsikhanouskaya said that \u201cit looks like President Trump believed in Ukraine, believed that they can win this war and hopefully it will become actions, not words. And of course, we also see that President Trump might be disappointed by Putin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump’s state department praised the release of political prisoners, to a point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe view Belarus\u2019s recent release of these political prisoners as another constructive step toward improving our bilateral relationship. There is much more to be done, and we hope to see continued progress,\u201d the department said in a statement. \u201cWe will continue to explore opportunities for pragmatic engagement with Belarus where it is in the United States\u2019 interest to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Belarusian president, whose iron-fisted rule earned him the nickname of \u201cEurope\u2019s Last Dictator,\u201d wants to fool President Donald Trump with gestures like prisoner releases, the exiled leader of Belarus\u2019 opposition told The Associated Press on Wednesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. Trump warmed U.S. relations with President Alexander Lukashenko this month by easing sanctions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-international"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-71.png?fit=768%2C512&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19461,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19459\/revisions\/19461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}