The European Union announced on Monday that it will extend for a year the sanctions that have been imposed on Belarus, due to the repression of the regime of Alexander Lukashenko and Minsk’s support for the war that Russia is waging in Ukraine.

The sanctions are being extended until February 28, 2024, the European Council, which represents the 27 EU member states, announced yesterday on Monday.

Earlier yesterday, Monday, prosecutors requested that a 19-year prison sentence be imposed on the head of the exiled Belarusian opposition. Svetlana Tsykhanovskaya has been on trial in absentia in the former Soviet republic since January.

Since August 2020, the EU has imposed several sets of sanctions on officials it has deemed responsible for opposition repression and human rights violations in Belarus.

The Belarusian president himself and 194 figures close to the regime are subject to travel bans and the freezing of any resources they had in European jurisdiction.

Sanctions are also imposed on 34 legal entities and all European funding to them has been banned.

Belarus is still subject to European targeted economic sanctions, in particular restrictions on the financial sector, trade, so-called dual-use goods, telecommunications, energy and transport.