Belarus and Poland conduct a five-for-five prisoner exchange

On Tuesday, Belarus and Poland conducted a prisoner exchange at their shared border involving five individuals from each side. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed the release of Andrzej Poczobut, a Polish-Belarusian journalist and activist who had been imprisoned since 2021 and sentenced to eight years in 2023 on charges of inciting ethnic hostility and undermining national security. Poland had long contested these charges as politically motivated. Among those exchanged by Poland was Alexander Butyagin, a Russian archaeologist who was facing potential extradition to Ukraine. Another individual released by Belarus was Grzegorz Gawel, a Polish Carmelite priest detained last year on espionage charges. The exchange also included an unnamed Belarusian citizen who reportedly cooperated with Polish intelligence. While Tusk celebrated the release of Poczobut, who was recently awarded the 2025 Sakharov Prize, full lists of the other participants were not immediately disclosed by authorities.