(Bloomberg) -- Poland released an accused Russian spy to facilitate the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War, but at home the government has come under fire for the failure to free a journalist who remains behind bars in Belarus, Moscow’s closest ally.
Andrzej Poczobut was detained in 2021 and is currently serving an eight-year prison sentence on charges, which include “causing harm” to the country’s national security.
The release of Poczobut, a Belarusian citizen and rights activist from the country’s Polish ethnic minority, has been high on Warsaw’s diplomatic agenda ever since.
Yet the long-awaited prisoner swap, which took place Thursday at Ankara airport, saw two other reporters freed: the Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich and Radio Free Europe’s Alsu Kurmasheva. They were released as a part of a group of 16 Western citizens formerly held in Russian and Belarusian prisons.
As the names of those to be freed became known, Polish journalists wondered why Poczobut was not among their number.
“As citizens, we have the right to feel disappointed,” wrote Bartosz Wielinski, editor of Gazeta Wyborcza, a Polish daily for which Poczobut was a correspondent.
Polish authorities released Pavel Rubtsov, jailed on espionage charges, as part of the deal.
When asked in a TVP interview what Poland was given in return for Rubtsov, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Szejna said that his release was an opportunity for Poland to display loyalty, which he described as “the value in itself”.
“Perhaps soon we will need a favor from the United States in another situation,” Szejna said.
Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya expressed disappointment that none of the country’s nearly 1,400 political prisoners were part of the swap, even though it involved releasing German national Rico Krieger from a Belarusian prison.
Krieger, who was sentenced to death, was swiftly pardoned by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko this week.
Lukashenko, who has been in power for three decades, unleashed a major crackdown on his opponents, independent media and civil society when his claim to have won a sixth presidential term was met with mass protests in 2020.
Polish Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak, told Bloomberg that the government is “working hard to set free all those imprisoned.”
“For the good of the cause we do not comment on this in any way in order to not undermine the efforts,” Siemoniak said.
“I would like to assure you that the efforts to release other political prisoners, Belarusian political prisoners, including Andrzej Poczobut, are proceeding separately” Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told the TVN24 broadcaster.
“He is in my thoughts every day.”
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