Why is Trump making deals with Belarus?
Ukrainecast
BBC
4.7 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 16 September 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Russia and Belarus have been staging joint military drills in an apparent message of strength to the West, but the relationship between US President Donald Trump and authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko seems to be warming.
Dozens of political prisoners have been freed from Belarusian prisons as part of a deal between the two countries, and some sanctions on Belarus have been eased. President Trump even sent Mr Lukashenko some cufflinks as a birthday gift.
The BBC’s Russia editor Steve Rosenberg joins us to describe witnessing the drills close up, and give his take on the apparent thawing of relations.
Plus, we speak to Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who’s currently in exile in Lithuania.
Today’s episode is presented by Lucy Hockings and Vitaly Shevchenko. The producers were Laurie Kalus and Julia Webster. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The social producer was Grace Braddock. The series producer is Chris Flynn. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham. Email Ukrainecast@bbc.co.uk with your questions and comments. You can also send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram to +44 330 1239480
You can join the Ukrainecast discussion on Newscast’s Discord server here: tinyurl.com/ukrainecastdiscord
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.5 | It's 1,301 days since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. |
| 0:10.9 | And Vitaly, we've been watching over the past few days these joint military drills between Russia and Belarus. |
| 0:16.8 | Yes, called Zappard or West. |
| 0:19.1 | They take place regularly or semi-regularly right on the eastern flank of NATO and the EU. |
| 0:28.9 | And the message is normally that of saber rattling and be afraid of us. |
| 0:36.1 | This time, there were unexpected guests at the exercise. Guests from the US military, |
| 0:45.7 | the Belarusian Defense Ministry published a video where the Belarusian defense minister, |
| 0:51.4 | Viktor Hrennen, shakes the hand of the US military attache, Brian Schupp, |
| 0:58.4 | and says that they will be able to see anything they're like during the exercises. And the |
| 1:06.0 | timing is, of course, interesting. It's a time of continuing tensions between Russia and its closest |
| 1:13.8 | allied Belarus and the Western world in Ukraine, on the other hand. And Donald Trump is clearly |
| 1:20.9 | trying to build bridges and reach out to the likes of Alexander Lukashenko, the one and only leader of Belarus since its independence. |
| 1:31.5 | Yeah, and of course it's less than a week. |
| 1:33.1 | After Poland, we saw shot down those Russian drones that crossed into its airspace. |
| 1:38.0 | Some from Belarus. |
| 1:39.2 | Yes, so interesting timing. |
| 1:41.3 | So Steve Rosenberg, our Rush editor, was also there. |
| 1:43.7 | He traveled across to Belarus |
| 1:45.1 | to watch the fighter jets, the attack drones, the helicopters, all of these military exercises, |
| 1:49.9 | and he's going to be joining us. And I've been speaking to the Belarusian opposition leader in |
| 1:55.3 | exiles, Svetlana Tsikhanovsky. This is Ukrainecast. Ukraine cast from BBC News. |
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