The UK introduced comprehensive sanctions in response to Belarus' flawed 2020 presidential elections and subsequent brutal crackdown, sanctioning over 120 individuals and entities. These include Lukashenko, security officials, judges and prosecutors. Belarus must be held accountable for both human rights violations, including treatment of political prisoners, against its own people and their support of Putin's illegal war. Since 2022, the Belarusian regime has facilitated Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the UK introduced sanctions in June 2022 and June 2023 in response which severely limited Belarus's ability to trade with the UK. We keep our sanctions under review, and reserve the right to introduce further measures.

The UK Government is appalled by the brutal and ongoing repression that the Lukashenko regime conducts against its own people. We have already applied wide-ranging sanctions to Belarus in response to the regime's continued human rights violations, and are supporting further accountability measures including the International Accountability Platform for Belarus. The UK makes our solidarity with political prisoners clear, when possible attending trials and engaging with their families. We have raised political prisoners at the UN and OSCE and will continue to take every opportunity, both publicly and privately, to urge the Belarusian regime to immediately and unconditionally release all political prisoners and protect the human rights of its citizens.

The UK Government is appalled by the brutal and ongoing repression that the Lukashenko regime conducts against its own people. We have already applied wide-ranging sanctions to Belarus in response to the regime's continued human rights violations, and are supporting further accountability measures including the International Accountability Platform for Belarus. The UK makes our solidarity with political prisoners clear, when possible attending trials and engaging with their families. We have raised political prisoners at the UN and OSCE and will continue to take every opportunity, both publicly and privately, to urge the Belarusian regime to immediately and unconditionally release all political prisoners and protect the human rights of its citizens.

I thank the noble Baroness for raising the case of young Dzmitry. I am not familiar with his case, but I am familiar with many others which are no less appalling. We are deeply concerned about the conditions in which political detainees are held in that country. Many of them have limited or no access to anything like proper healthcare and are subject to relentless interrogation, intimidation and psychological pressure techniques, all of which amount to a form of torture. This is contrary to Belarus’ international obligations to which the authorities have committed themselves on numerous occasions but continuously fail to uphold. We make our solidarity with political prisoners clear frequently, attend trials and engage with the families of political prisoners at every opportunity.