Belarus has “unilaterally” released an American detention woman, Secretary of State of the United States Marco Rubio Announced on Sunday, while the Kremlin Allied country celebrated an orchestrated choice prepared to give Strongman President Alexander Lukashenko Another term above its three decades in power.
Rubio’s publication on social network X identified the American citizen as Anastassia Nuhfer. He said he was arrested during the mandate of former President Joe Biden, but did not specify when or why.
Rubio’s statement occurred after the waves of launches of prisoners of Lukashenko, often called “the last dictator of Europe.” The oldest rights group of Belarus, Viasna, says that more than 1,250 people remain detained for their opposition to the authorities.
Lukashenko’s opponents, many of whom are imprisoned or exiled abroad for their relentless repression against dissent and freedom of expression, have called Sunday’s elections as a farce. The last election in 2020 caused months of unprecedented mass protests in Belarusian history.
The United States Department of State said later on Sunday that Nuhfer was arrested in early December 2024. He said that earlier this month, a Washington Consular officer received rare access to an American detainee in Belarus.
A high -ranking former Belarusian diplomat told AP to AP that Nuhfer’s arrest was linked to 2020 protests, although he did not give details. The source, which spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, said that Lukashenko himself offered to free the American citizen “as a gesture of goodwill,” while declining to free any opposition activist and berousy rights.
The Nuhfer launch took public activists and even Belarusians by surprise. His name had not been publicly launched and had not appeared in lists of political prisoners.
Pavel Sapelka of the Viasna Rights Group said he and his colleagues had not been aware of his arrest or circumstances.
Lukashenko’s support for war in Ukraine has led to the rupture of Belarus ties with the USA. And the EU, ending his game of using the West to try to win more Kremlin subsidies.
But Artyom Shraybman, an expert in Belarus with the Carnegie Russia and Eurasia center, predicted that Minsk could try to relieve his total dependence on Russia after the elections, seeking again to communicate to the west.
“Lukashenko’s provisional objective is to use the elections to confirm their legitimacy and try to overcome its isolation to at least start a conversation with the West about the ease of sanctions,” said Shraybman.
It was not clear what, if any, concessions, Minsk has requested in exchange for freeing the American citizen.
