VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Belarus freed 52 political prisoners on Thursday, as the United States announced it was lifting sanctions on the isolated country’s national airline.

Belarus, a close ally of Russia, has been repeatedly slapped with Western sanctions both for its authoritarian government’s crackdown on human rights and its role in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Its president, Alexander Lukashenko, has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades, and allowed the Kremlin to use Belarusian territory to send troops and weapons into Ukraine.

But for more than a year, Lukashenko has sought to mend ties with the West in the hopes of easing the sanctions and the country’s international isolation. He has regularly released prisoners as a way to wi

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