Ukraine has refused a United States request to lift sanctions on Belaruskali, Belarus’s state potash giant. The regime in Minsk hosts the launches and relays for the Russian drones that strike Ukrainian cities. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha delivered the refusal on 25 May at a joint press conference in Kyiv.
Sanctions relief would not pry Belarus loose from Russia, Sybiha said in Kyiv.
Beside him stood Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who has led Belarus’s exiled democratic opposition since the disputed 2020 election. The visit was her first to Ukraine. The request had come in a leaked letter from John Coale, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Belarus.
Sanctions relief would not pry Belarus loose from Russia, Sybiha said in Kyiv, since the regime is “too incorporated, too integrated into this criminal combination with the Russians.” Belaruskali is the Lukashenka regime’s largest taxpayer and a top source of foreign currency.
Trump’s State Department refused to recognize Lukashenka in 2020. Today he’s a “friend.”
The leaked letter
The one-page document, obtained by RFE/RL, cites the Trump administration’s March decision to lift US restrictions on Belaruskali. American firms now want to buy and ship Belarusian potash.
Avoiding Russian ports means transit through Ukraine, Lithuania, or Poland. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry confirmed receipt of the letter. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys told LRT last week that Vilnius faces the same pressure.
Potash has no synthetic substitute in farming, and the United States imports around 85 percent of its supply from Canada. Belarus holds about a quarter of the world’s reserves. The Trump administration lifted Belaruskali sanctions in March, only days after threatening severe tariffs on Canadian fertilizer, Argus reported. Having Belarus as a backup strengthens Washington’s hand against Ottawa.
Since September 2025, Washington has eased Belarus sanctions repeatedly, each round timed to a release of political prisoners.
The March removal was the largest step in a longer series. Since September 2025, Washington has eased Belarus sanctions repeatedly, each round timed to a release of political prisoners. About 500 prisoners have left Belarusian jails since then.
In return: relief for state airline Belavia, for Belaruskali, and for its trading arm, the Belarusian Potash Company. Relief also went to Belinvestbank, a state bank. Belarusian defectors documented it as financing the artillery shells Russia fires at Ukrainian positions.
The bombed country refuses
Asked whether partners were pressing Kyiv to soften its line, Sybiha said Ukraine “rejects any approaches related to weakening pressure.” The moment, he said, called for the opposite.
He confirmed that the Belarusian democratic opposition had handed Kyiv its own list of further sanctions targets.
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What the asymmetry pays for
US relief works only halfway. The EU has kept its sanctions on Belaruskali in place, and any extension requires the agreement of every member state. Current ones expire in February 2027. Without Lithuanian or Polish transit, Belarusian potash ships through Russian ports. Belarus pays Russian transit fees. Its dependence on the Kremlin deepens—the opposite of the policy goal Washington has stated.
Trump has called Aliaksandr Lukashenka a friend, and a Mar-a-Lago invitation is reportedly under discussion.
Coale visited Vilnius in March to urge Lithuania to restore the potash route. Trump has called Aliaksandr Lukashenka a friend, and a Mar-a-Lago invitation is reportedly under discussion. Belarus has not been asked to stop hosting Shahed launches. Nor to break what Sybiha called the criminal combination with Moscow.
“Lukashenka’s rhetoric is shifting—we are preparing for war,” Tsikhanouskaya told reporters at the same press conference, paraphrasing the Belarusian president’s recent statements. “And that, of course, is very alarming for people.”
