With the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine approaching its four-year mark, the Eastern European country of Belarus remains under extensive sanctions from the United States, The United Kingdom, Canada, and European countries for its role in facilitating the war.

In February 2022, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko allowed Russian President Vladimir Putin to build up Russian forces that later ended up crossing the border to invade Ukraine from its territory.

In response, the Biden administration placed extensive sanctions on Belarusian companies across different industries. The sanctions were partially lifted in December 2025 after Lukashenko freed 123 prisoners and opposition activists who participated in anti-government protests against his election for a sixth term in 2020, the BBC reported.

Belarusian airline Belavia authorized to use Boeing 737 planes on Russia flights: report

National airline and flag carrier Belavia has, for the first three-and-a-half years of the war, been prohibited from using Boeing planes made in the U.S. Belavia has repeatedly violated this direction by flying the planes anyway.

In November 2025, the U.S. Treasury Department formally lifted these restrictions in a further thawing of relations between Washington and Minsk, according to Reuters.

The lifted sanctions related to both commercial flights and a Boeing 737 used as a presidential plane to fly Lukashenko and other high-ranking officials, but retained a ban on using U.S.-made aircraft to run flights to Russian territory.

Related: US government issues new urgent warning about Russia travel

But as first reported by Poland-based Belarusian outlet Belsat and ch-aviation, a letter sent to Belavia by the U.S. Department of Commerce in November 2025 no longer included Russia among the countries to which the carrier is prohibited from flying.

Given the travel restrictions that most Western nations have in place for Belarusian citizens, flights to a number of Russian cities already made up the bulk of Belavia’s market even before the restrictions were lifted.

The list of banned flight zones also included Iran, Syria, Cuba, and North Korea, as well as the occupied regions of Ukraine.

Belavia is the national airline and flag carrier of Belarus.

After years of unauthorized flights, Belavia flight restrictions lifted formally

Shutterstock There has been no official comment confirming that the restrictions on flying to Russia were also lifted, or explaining why this decision was made.

“By removing the Belarusian flag carrier from the specially designated nationals (SDN) list, the U.S. government will now allow all U.S. entities and individuals to do business with the airline,” Dominik Sipinski reported for ch-aviation in November 2025.

“The decision confirms the tentative suspension of the sanctions in early September 2025, which already authorised those transactions. However, Belavia later said that the tentative nature of the suspension was still posing problems.”

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Travel news: With these breakthroughs for the airline and thawing of diplomatic relations despite the raging war, Belavia Director General Igor Cherginets began talking to press about potential direct U.S. flights.

In December 2025, he said that he views New York as the carrier’s “most promising” long-haul destination, AeroXplorer noted, but such a scenario is unlikely, given that Belarus remains under a level four “do not travel” advisory by the U.S. State Department and has had no operational U.S. embassy since the start of the war in Ukraine.

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