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The Bélarus, the ally closest to Russia, published an American prisoner and two others in prison, an exiled opposition group said on Wednesday, in the last sign that the autocratic president of Belarusian, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, was looking for ways to improve frozen relations with the West.
The outings, announced by an opposition group led by Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in Lithuania, a neighbor of Bélarus, followed what Western diplomats said they were a secret visit on Wednesday in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, by an assistant secretary of state American assistant, Christopher W. Smith. The group did not identify the American who was released.
The State Department did not respond to messages asking for comments on the question of whether Mr. Smith went to Minsk, in what would be the highest visit to Belarus by an American official since Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State during the first administration of President Trump, went there in 2020, seeks to “normalize” the links.
Mr. Smith, a deduction from the Biden administration last month helped to guarantee the release of another American citizen held in Bélarus, Anastassia Nuhfer.
Franak Viacorka, chief of staff to Mrs. Tikhanovskaya, said in A video published on Telegram That he had visited the United States Embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania, and picked up one of the people who, according to him, had been released, Alena Movsuk, whom he described as an activist.
He did not name the American Freed, but said that the third person was released was Andrey Kuznechyk, journalist at the Bélarus Service of Radio Free Europe, a press organization funded by the Americans.
Lithuanian government officials said that an American citizen had entered this Baltic nation of Bélarus on Wednesday. They also did not give a name. They said that Mr. Smith was now in Vilnius and would hold meetings on Thursday with European diplomats.
Since the trip of Mr. Pompeo to Minsk in February 2020, relations between Bélarus and the West have gone from bad to worse, poisoned by the brutal repression of Mr. Lukashenko against the demonstrations of the street nationwide after What his opponents and Western governments say they are a faked presidential election in August in August 2020.
The large -scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022, which was launched in part from the Belarusian territory, has more tapered relations. The United States closed its embassy in Minsk shortly after the invasion.
In the past few months, however, a slow but constant flow of prisoners, mainly implicated persons for involvement in the 2020 demonstrations, has been published in what analysts and opposition activists consider as an effort by M. Lukashenko to bring his country of cold.
Mr. Lukashenko, having been suspicious for a long time to become too dependent on Russia for economic support and security, has a long history of maneuver between the East and the West, a game that ended suddenly after repression Post-electoral in 2020 but which it now seems impatient to relaunch revive.
A first opponent in the 2020 race was Sergei Tikhanovsky, but he was arrested shortly after announcing his candidacy and later sentenced to 18 years in prison, where he remains. Ms. Tikhanovskaya, his wife, became a candidate for her place, but she fled the country shortly after the elections and was sentenced to absence at 15.
With all his eminent criticisms conducted in exile or imprisoned, and all the potential rivals continued the ballot in a presidential election last month, Mr. Lukashenko reached another landslide victory, his seventh consequence, with 87% of votes – even more than 81% he claimed in the disputed elections in 2020.
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