US removes Belarus’ Belavia from the sanctioned entity list
John Coale, Trump's representative, confirmed the news during a meeting with Lukashenko in Minsk, Belarus.
The United States has removed Belarus-based Belavia from its Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list (SDN), Belarussian state media has confirmed.
The announcement came during the meeting between Aleksandr Lukashenko, the President and dictator of Belarus, and John Coale, a representative of Donald Trump, the President of the US, on September 11, 2025.
In a post on Telegram, the Belarusian Telegraph Agency (BelTA) quoted Coale as saying that the US has “lifted sanctions against Belavia,” reassuring that this was “official.”
“I had a meeting with President Trump, in which several dozen other people participated. This decision was made by the President, who said, “Do it immediately.”
In a separate statement on September 11, 2025, Gitanas Nausėda, the President of Lithuania, confirmed that Belarus freed 52 political prisoners from its prisons, including six Lithuanian nationals.
Nausėda thanked Trump, who “had been involved in the process from the very beginning till the very end,” according to Lithuania’s public broadcaster LRT.
However, the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) site still lists Belavia as an SDN, with the list being last updated on September 8, 2025.
On June 16, 2022, the US Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced that it had issued an order “temporarily denying all export privileges for Belavia Belarusian Airlines (Belavia) due to ongoing violations of the comprehensive export controls imposed on Belarus by the Commerce Department.”
Just two months prior, the BIS “removed license exception availability for any aircraft registered in, owned, or controlled by, or under charter or lease by Belarus or a national of Belarus, also imposing a license requirement for these Belarusian-owned/operated aircraft.”
The US expanded its sanctions against Belarus and Belavia in August 2023, noting that Belavia had already been prohibited from selling tickets and offering interline connections to the US after the regime in Belarus forced Ryanair flight FR 4978, flying from Athens Airport (ATH) to Vilnius Airport (VNO), to land at Minsk National Airport (MSQ) on May 21, 2021.
Following the diversion, local officials arrested two individuals, including Roman Protasevich, who had opposed Lukashenko’s regime and his fictitious re-election during the 2020 Belarusian Presidential elections.
“OFAC is designating Belavia pursuant to E.O. 14038 for being owned or controlled by, or for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the GoB [Government of Belarus – ed. note].”
Belarus has been complicit in Russia’s war against Ukraine. While its troops had never crossed the border, the European Union (EU), for example, concluded that the country’s authorities had allowed Russian armed forces to use its territory and provided support to the Russian military, resulting in multiple sanction packages against individuals and entities based in Belarus.
According to planespotters.net, Belavia has 16 aircraft in its fleet, including three Airbus A330-200, eight Boeing 737s, including one 737 MAX 8, one Embraer E175, and four E195 aircraft.
Despite the sanctions, Belavia had managed to acquire the trio of A330-200s in June 2025. Mariusz Kamiński, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), noted that if Belavia were to launch flights to China or Southeast Asia, it “would be a propaganda success for the regime, much as the acquisition itself is already being portrayed.”
Belavia called the addition of the three A330-200s a fundamental change in the country’s aviation history, since these are the first widebody aircraft acquired by a domestic airline since Belarus gained independence in the 1990s.
“[…] direct flights from Minsk to popular resorts, particularly in Southeast Asian countries, will become a real prospect for Belarusians, not a dream,” Igor Tcherginets, the Director General of Belavia, said on June 10, 2025.
