The U.S. Department of the Treasury has lifted sanctions on Belarus’s state airline Belavia, along with a government-owned Bombardier CRJ-200ER jet with tail number EW-301PJ, according to a Nov. 4 notice published by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
The aircraft, owned by Belavia, had been used by Viktor and Dmitry Lukashenko, sons of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. Aside from delisting the airline and the plane, the Treasury added eight North Korean nationals and two North Korean entities — Korea Mangyongdae Computer Technology Corporation and Ryujong Credit Bank — to its sanctions list.
The decision to remove the Belarus-related sanctions was first announced on Sept. 11 during a visit to Minsk by John Coale, deputy special envoy to President Donald Trump’s representative Keith Kellogg. Following Coale’s meeting with Lukashenko, Belarus released 52 political prisoners, who were later transported across the border to Lithuania.
Among those freed were Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Ihar Losik, philosopher Uladzimir Matskevich, opposition politician Mikola Statkevich, and 14 foreign nationals from Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Germany, France, and the UK. Statkevich, a veteran dissident, refused to cross over into Lithuania, spending several hours in the “neutral zone” between the two countries before being allowed back into Belarus, where he was returned to the same prison from which he had been released.
Sept. 11 marked the second wave of prisoner releases following talks between the U.S. and Belarus. In June, Kellogg had visited Minsk, after which Lukashenko freed 14 political prisoners, including prominent opposition figure Siarhei Tsihanouski, the husband of exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and a former presidential aspirant in his own right.
Coale told reporters that Washington is working to secure the release of all remaining Belarusian political prisoners, whose number he estimated at around 1,300.
Sanctions on Belavia and the EW-301PJ aircraft were originally imposed by the U.S. in August 2023. In March of that year, the U.S. also sanctioned a Belarusian government Boeing 737 with tail number EW-001PA, which is used personally by Lukashenko. The Treasury’s latest notice makes no mention of that aircraft.
Belavia remains under European Union sanctions, imposed in December 2021 after Brussels accused Minsk of organizing the transport of illegal migrants as part of a state-sponsored effort to destabilize European countries. Belavia is still barred from flying over EU airspace or using EU airports for landings or takeoffs. The restrictions mean the airline cannot operate flights between the United States and Belarus through EU territory.