About our Belarus news
Latest news on Belarus: Lukashenko, political prisoners, Minsk, Belarusian opposition, EU sanctions, and Belarus's role in Russia's war against Ukraine.
Belarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia, with its capital, Minsk, serving as the country's political and economic centre. Under President Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, Belarus is widely regarded as Europe's last authoritarian state. The January 2025 presidential election, in which Lukashenko claimed 87.6% of the vote with no genuine opposition candidates permitted on the ballot, was condemned by Western governments as fraudulent. He was inaugurated for a seventh consecutive term in March 2025.
The fate of political prisoners has dominated international attention. Since 2024, Lukashenko has released hundreds of detainees in a series of deals brokered largely by the United States. In March 2026, 250 prisoners were freed in the largest single release to date, in exchange for partial sanctions relief, including measures affecting Belarus's vital potash sector. Human rights groups estimate that more than 1,000 people remain behind bars on politically motivated grounds, among them journalists and civil society activists.
The Belarusian opposition in exile, led by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has become a symbol of the country's democratic aspirations. Tsikhanouskaya, widely regarded as the true winner of the rigged 2020 election, was reunited with her husband, Siarhei Tsikhanouski, after his release in June 2025 following more than five years' imprisonment. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, founder of the Viasna human rights centre, was among those freed in December 2025. The exiled opposition continues to call for the release of all remaining political prisoners and an end to Lukashenko's rule.
Lukashenko first came to power in Belarus's only genuinely competitive post-Soviet election in 1994, presenting himself as an anti-corruption populist. Over three decades, he has dismantled democratic institutions, tightened control over the media, and crushed civil society. The 2020 election and the mass protests it triggered marked a turning point, with tens of thousands detained and much of Belarus's independent civil society driven into exile. Belarus's close dependence on Russia deepened further after Minsk allowed Russian forces to use its territory at the outset of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The EU has imposed extensive sanctions on Belarus in response to human rights abuses, electoral fraud, and the country's role in supporting Russia's war effort. In December 2025, the EU broadened its sanctions regime to cover hybrid activities, including the deliberate instrumentalisation of migrants at the EU's eastern borders, and extended the measures for a further year in February 2026. Lukashenko has signalled an interest in limited dialogue with the West, though critics warn that prisoner releases tied to sanctions relief amount to trading in human lives.
The NewsNow Belarus feed brings you comprehensive coverage of political developments in Minsk, the opposition movement, international sanctions, human rights, and Belarus's complex position between Russia and Europe. Whether you are following the political prisoner crisis, Lukashenko's latest moves, or wider developments in Eastern Europe, it is your one-stop source for the most relevant headlines as they break.