U.S. Ambassador to Lithuania Kara McDonald told Newsmax on Tuesday that U.S. sanctions against Belarus played a decisive role in a U.S.-brokered deal that led to the release of 123 political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, opposition activist Maria Kolesnikova, and an unnamed American citizen.
McDonald described the release on "The Record With Greta Van Susteren" as a rare and emotional moment, crediting sustained U.S. pressure and close coordination with Lithuania for securing the prisoners' freedom.
"It's an honor to be part of it and to support it, to watch these people come out, to know that an American citizen is free tonight because of our president, because of this effort," McDonald said.
"We worked for five years to try to get a lot of these people out," she said.
McDonald said the detentions of figures such as Bialiatski and Kolesnikova were a key reason the U.S. imposed sanctions on Belarus following the country's disputed 2020 presidential election and subsequent crackdown on dissent.
"And the reason we put sanctions in place in 2020, in part, was because these people got taken," she said.
"So, it's a tremendous example of how sanctions have worked and how our president has led this effort to free those who are unjustly imprisoned," McDonald added.
Belarus has faced sweeping U.S. and European sanctions over human rights abuses, election fraud allegations, and its alignment with Russia.
The latest prisoner release followed years of diplomatic efforts aimed at securing humanitarian concessions from the government of President Aleksandr Lukashenko.
McDonald emphasized Lithuania's central role in facilitating the transfer of prisoners from Belarus into safety.
Lithuania, a NATO ally and European Union member bordering Belarus, served as the initial destination for those released.
"Our ally has been tremendous," McDonald said. "Lithuania is a model ally, and they provided a lot of support to bring the folks across the border."
She noted that Lithuania has long served as a safe harbor for Belarusian dissidents and said cooperation with Vilnius, Lithuania's capital city, was essential in conducting the transfer across an EU and NATO border.
Once the prisoners arrived at the U.S. Embassy in Vilnius, McDonald said diplomats coordinated with other countries to reunite freed detainees with their governments.
"We reached out to them, and they came here to the embassy to greet their citizens as they're released," she said.
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