The presence of the U.S. officers is the latest sign of warming ties between Washington and Belarus, a close Russian ally that allowed Moscow to use its territory to send tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

U.S. President Donald Trump said that a sticking point in the prospects of talks between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky is the level of enmity between them. Trump suggested that he would have to be an intermediary for the leaders of Russia and Ukraine because they "hate each other so much they almost can't talk.