FILE - Journalist Andrzej Poczobut stands in a defendants' cage at a court session in Grodno, Belarus, on Jan. 16, 2023. (Leonid Shcheglov/Pool via AP, File)
FILE - In this image made from video provided by Russian Federal Security Service via RTR on Aug. 1, 2024, Germany's Rico Krieger, center, and a Russian Federal Security Service agent, left, leave a bus as they arrive at an airport outside Moscow, Russia. Krieger, a German medical worker who was arrested last year on terrorism charges, was the only prisoner freed from Belarus and was among 16 imprisoned Westerners and Russian dissidents swapped for eight Russians held abroad. (Russian Federal Security Service/RTR via AP, File)
FILE - Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, center, holds a portrait of her jailed husband, Siarhei Tsikhanouski, at a protest demanding freedom for political prisoners in front of the Belarus Embassy, in Vilnius, Lithuania, on March 8, 2024. Tsikhanouskaya expressed disappointment that last week’s East-West prisoner swap failed to free any Belarusian prisoners. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis, File)
This photo combination shows Belarus political prisoners, clockwise from top left, Viasna human rights group founder and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski in , Belarus' opposition activist Maria Kolesnikova, journalist Andrzej Poczobut and opposition activist Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya holding a portrait of her jailed husband Syarhey Tsikhanousky. (AP Photo)
FILE - Natalia Pinchuk, the wife of imprisoned Belarusian human rights campaigner and Nobel peace laureate Ales Bialiatski, speaks to reporters in Warsaw, Poland, on March 21, 2023. Pinchuk voiced dismay that the biggest East-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War didn’t set any Belarusian political prisoners free. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File)
FILE - Ales Bialiatski, the head of Belarusian Viasna rights group, stands in a defendants' cage during a court session in Minsk, Belarus, on Nov. 2, 2011. As the biggest East-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War unfolded, the Belarusian opposition and rights activists couldn't hide their disappointment that it didn't include a single Belarusian political prisoner. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits, File)
FILE - In this picture taken on Aug. 4, 2021, Belarus' opposition activists Maria Kolesnikova attends a court hearing in Minsk, Belarus. Kolesnikova was imprisoned in September 2020 after defiantly tearing up her passport at the border when authorities tried to deport her. (Ramil Nasibulin/BelTA pool photo via AP, File)
FILE - Belarusian dissident Pavel Latushka talks on the phone in Warsaw, Poland, on Aug. 2, 2021. The Viasna human rights center says over 50,000 Belarusians have been subjected to political repression in the past four years. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File)
FILE - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko holds a candle while visiting the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Valaam monastery with Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Valaam Island in Ladoga Lake in Russia on July 25, 2024. (Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Tatsiana Khomich accepts the Charlemagne Prize in Germany on behalf of her sister, imprisoned Belarus' opposition activist Maria Kolesnikova, on May 26, 2022. Khomich said she was disappointed her sister wasn’t released from prison in the massive prisoner exchange last week. (Bernd Thissen/dpa via AP)