By YURAS KARMANAU, Associated Press

Authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday hosted a U.S. envoy for talks in the Belarus capital of Minsk, the latest step in the isolated leader’s effort to improve ties with the West.

Lukashenko met with President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Belarus, John Coale, according to state news agency Belta and the presidential press service. The press service said the talks would continue Saturday.

The last time U.S. officials met with Lukashenko, Washington announced easing some of the sanctions against Belarus, and more than 50 political prisoners were released and brought to Lithuania. Overall, Belarus released more than 430 prisoners since July 2024 in what was widely seen as an effort at a rapprochement with the West.

“They say Trump loves flattery. But I’m not aiming for flattery. I want to say that I really like his actions lately,” Belta quoted Lukashenko as saying.

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A close ally of Russia, Minsk has faced Western isolation and sanctions for years. Lukashenko has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades, and the country has been sanctioned repeatedly by Western countries — both for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Lukashenko’s rule was challenged after a 2020 presidential election that kept him in power, when tens of thousands of people poured into the streets to protest a vote widely seen as rigged. They were the largest demonstrations in Belarus’ history, after the country became independent following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

In an ensuing crackdown, tens of thousands of people were detained, with many beaten by police. Prominent opposition figures either fled the country or were imprisoned.

Five years after the mass demonstrations, Lukashenko won a seventh term in an election that the opposition called a farce.

More recently, however, Belarus has begun to free some political prisoners to try to win favor with the West. Since Donald Trump returned to the White House this year, Lukashenko has released dozens of prisoners, including key dissident figure Siarhei Tsikhanouski — the husband of exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. His release came after a visit to Belarus by U.S. envoy Keith Kellogg.

Trump spoke to Lukashenko by phone in August after one such release and even suggested a face-to-face meeting in what would be a big victory for the Belarusian leader, who has been dubbed “Europe’s Last Dictator.”

A month later, Lukashenko freed more than 50 prisoners, and the U.S. lifted sanctions on the country’s national airline, Belavia, allowing it to repair and buy parts for its planes, including Boeing aircraft.

Those released were brought to Lithuania. But one — prominent opposition activist Mikola Statkevich — refused to leave Belarus. The 69-year-old, who described the government’s actions as a “forced deportation,” got off the bus and stayed for several hours in the no-man’s land between the countries before being taken away by Belarusian police and returned to prison.

Human rights advocates point out that Belarusian authorities continue their relentless crackdown on dissent despite the prisoners releases, with more people regularly arrested on politically motivated charges.

There are still about 1,200 political prisoners in Belarus, according to human rights group Viasna, including its founder, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski.

By MOLLY QUELL

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Judges and prosecutors at the International Criminal Court are trying to live and work under the same U.S. financial and travel restrictions brought against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Osama bin Laden.

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Nine staff members, including six judges and the ICC’s chief prosecutor, have been sanctioned by U.S. President Donald Trump for pursuing investigations into officials from the U.S. and Israel, which aren’t among The Hague court’s 125 member states.

Typically reserved for autocrats, crime bosses and the like, the sanctions can be devastating. They prevent the ICC officials and their families from entering the United States, block their access to even basic financial services and extend to the minutiae of their everyday lives.

The court’s top prosecutor, British national Karim Khan, had his bank accounts closed and his U.S. visa revoked, and Microsoft even canceled his ICC email address. Canadian judge Kimberly Prost, who was named in the latest round of sanctions in August, immediately lost access to her credit cards, and Amazon’s Alexa stopped responding to her.

“Your whole world is restricted,” Prost told The Associated Press last week.

Prost had an inkling of what would happen when she made the list. Before joining the ICC in 2017, she worked on sanctions for the U.N. Security Council. She was targeted by the Trump administration for voting to allow the court’s investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan, including by American troops and intelligence operatives.

“I’ve worked all my life in criminal justice, and now I’m on a list with those implicated in terrorism and organized crime,” she said.

How the sanctions work

The sanctions have taken their toll on the court’s work across a broad array of investigations at a time when the institution is juggling ever more demands on its resources and a leadership crisis centered on Khan. Earlier this year, he stepped aside pending the outcome of an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct. He denies the allegations.

How companies comply with sanctions can be unpredictable. Businesses and individuals risk substantial U.S. fines and prison time if they provide sanctioned people with “financial, material, or technological support,” forcing many to stop working with them.

The sanctions’ effects can be sweeping and even surprising.

Shortly after she was listed, Prost bought an e-book, “The Queen’s Necklace” by Antál Szerb, only to later find it had disappeared from her device.

“It’s the uncertainty,” she said. “They are small annoyances, but they accumulate.”

FILE – Presiding judge Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza prepares to rule on a request to release former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, Friday, Nov. 28, 2025. (Lina Selg/Pool Photo via AP, file)

Staff worry about their families

Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza, a sanctioned Peruvian judge who was involved in the same Afghanistan decision as Prost, told the AP that the problems are “not only for me, but also for my daughters,” who can no longer attend work conferences in the U.S.

Deputy prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan echoed her colleagues’ concerns, saying “You’re never quite sure when your card is not working somewhere, whether this is just a glitch or whether this is the sanction.”

Meanwhile the staffers, some of whom also face arrest warrants in Russia, are worried that Washington might sanction the entire ICC, rendering it unable to pay employees, provide financial assistance to protected witnesses or even keep the lights on.

The ICC was established in 2002 as the world’s permanent court of last resort to prosecute individuals responsible for the most heinous atrocities — war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression. It only takes action when nations are unable or unwilling to prosecute those crimes on their territory.

The court has no police force and relies on member states to execute arrest warrants, making it very unlikely that any U.S. or Israeli official would end up in the dock. But those wanted by the court, like Putin, can risk arrest when traveling abroad or after leaving office — the ICC took custody this year of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who is accused of crimes against humanity for his deadly anti-drugs crackdowns.

FILE – Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan attends a hearing at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, Oct. 6, 2025. (Piroschka van de Wouw/Pool Photo via AP, file)

The Trump administration’s rationale

When explaining Trump’s executive order sanctioning the ICC in February, the White House said the move was in response to the “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”

“The United States will not tolerate efforts to violate our sovereignty or to wrongfully subject U.S. or Israeli persons to the ICC’s unjust jurisdiction,” Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesman, said in response to questions from the AP.

There is little the staff can do to get the sanctions lifted. Sanctions imposed during the first Trump administration against the previous prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, weren’t removed until Joe Biden became president.

Ibáñez, a former prosecutor in Peru, vowed that the sanctions wouldn’t have any impact on her judicial activities in The Hague. “In my country, I prosecuted terrorists and drug lords. I will continue my work,” she said.

Prost, too, is defiant, saying the sanctioned staff “are absolutely undeterred and unfettered.”

By LORNE COOK

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union on Friday indefinitely froze Russia’s assets in Europe to ensure that Hungary and Slovakia, both with Moscow-friendly governments, can’t prevent the billions of euros from being used to support Ukraine.

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Using a special procedure meant for economic emergencies, the EU blocked the assets until Russia gives up its war on Ukraine and compensates its neighbor for the heavy damage that it has inflicted for almost four years.

EU Council President António Costa said European leaders had committed in October “to keep Russian assets immobilized until Russia ends its war of aggression against Ukraine and compensates for the damage caused. Today we delivered on that commitment.”

It’s a key step that will allow EU leaders to work out at a summit next week how to use the tens of billions of euros in Russian Central Bank assets to underwrite a huge loan to help Ukraine meet its financial and military needs over the next two years.

“Next step: securing Ukraine’s financial needs for 2026–27,” added Costa, who will chair the summit on Dec. 18.

The move also prevents the assets, estimated to total around 210 billion euros ($247 billion), from being used in any negotiations to end the war without European approval.

A 28-point plan drafted by U.S. and Russian envoys stipulated that the EU would release the frozen assets for use by Ukraine, Russia and the United States. That plan, which surfaced last month, was rejected by Ukraine and its backers in Europe.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán – Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in Europe – accused the European Commission, which prepared the decision, “of systematically raping European law.”

The vast majority of the funds — around 193 billion euros ($225 billion) at the end of September — are held in Euroclear, a Belgian financial clearing house.

The money was frozen under sanctions that the EU imposed on Russia over the war it launched on Feb. 24, 2022, but these sanctions must be renewed every six months, and all 27 member countries must approve them for that to happen.

Hungary and Slovakia oppose providing more support to Ukraine.

Friday’s decision, which is based on EU treaty rules allowing the bloc to protect its economic interests in certain emergency situations, prevents them from blocking the sanctions rollover and make it easier to use the assets.

Orbán said on social media that it means that “the rule of law in the European Union comes to an end, and Europe’s leaders are placing themselves above the rules.”

“The European Commission is systematically raping European law. It is doing this in order to continue the war in Ukraine, a war that clearly isn’t winnable,” he wrote. He said that Hungary “will do everything in its power to restore a lawful order.”

In a letter to Costa, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said that he would refuse to back any move that “would include covering Ukraine’s military expenses for the coming years.”

He warned “that the use of frozen Russian assets could directly jeopardize U.S. peace efforts, which directly count on the use of these resources for the reconstruction of Ukraine.”

But the commission argues that the war has imposed heavy costs by hiking energy prices and stunting economic growth in the EU, which has already provided nearly 200 billion euros ($235 billion) in support to Ukraine.

Belgium, where Euroclear is based, is opposed to the “reparations loan” plan. It says that the plan “entails consequential economic, financial and legal risks,” and has called on other EU countries to share the risk.

Russia’s Central Bank, meanwhile, said on Friday that it has filed a lawsuit in Moscow against Euroclear for damages it says were caused when Moscow was barred from managing the assets. Euroclear declined to comment.

In a separate statement, the Central Bank also described wider EU plans to use Russian assets to aid Ukraine as “illegal, contrary to international law,” arguing that they violated “the principles of sovereign immunity of assets.”

Karel Janicek in Prague, Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed to this report.

By LARRY LAGE and ED WHITE, AP Sports Writers

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Sherrone Moore, who was abruptly fired this week as the University of Michigan football coach, was charged Friday with three crimes including home invasion and stalking a person he had dated, prosecutors said.

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Moore has spent two nights in jail following his firing and subsequent arrest Wednesday.

The 39-year-old coach who had led the Wolverines for two seasons was fired for what the school called an inappropriate relationship with a staff member. Hours later, police arrested Moore after he was accused of assault in Pittsfield Township, a community near Ann Arbor.

Moore is accused of “unlawfully entering the dwelling of a victim with whom Mr. Moore had a dating relationship,” the Washtenaw County prosecutor’s office said Friday.

Defense attorney Joe Simon had no comment before Moore’s initial appearance in court.

Michigan has not disclosed details of the alleged relationship but said an investigation found credible evidence against Moore, who is married with three young daughters. Athletic director Warde Manuel said the behavior was “a clear violation of university policy.”

Moore signed a five-year contract with a base annual salary of $5.5 million last year. According to the terms of his deal, the university will not have to buy out the remaining years of his contract because he was fired for cause.

Moore, the team’s former offensive coordinator, was promoted to lead the Wolverines after they won the national title. He succeeded Jim Harbaugh, who returned to the NFL to lead the Los Angeles Chargers.

Michigan is set to play No. 14 Texas on Dec. 31 in the Citrus Bowl. Biff Poggi, who filled in for Moore when he was suspended earlier this season in relation to a Harbaugh-era sign-stealing scandal, will serve as interim coach.

While the school seeks a new head coach, the Wolverines may lose players in the transfer portal this winter and donors who help fund revenue-sharing and NIL deals may hesitate to invest in the winningest program in college football history.