Status: 12/19/2022 08:59 a.m
Belarusian volunteers – Denys and Oleg, for example – fight for the Ukrainian army in the Kalinovsky regiment. They are strict opponents of Lukashenko and believe that a free Belarus is only possible with a free Ukraine.
A small cinema in Kiev is showing a documentary about the 2020 Belarusian protest movement, which the ruler Alexander Lukashenko had bloodily crushed at the time. The audience includes exiled Belarusians, but also Ukrainians. Denys and Oleg are watching in the front row.
The two Belarusians are wearing the uniform of the Ukrainian army and have insignia of the so-called Belarusian Kalinovsky regiment on their sleeves. This is under the command of the Ukrainian military and has more than 300 members, according to Oleg. Without a free Ukraine there would be no free Belarus, said the thirty-something after the film.
The only reason Lukashenko is still in power is the support from Russia. That’s where the problems in Ukraine and Belarus come from. Therefore, the only way to see not only Ukraine but also Belarus free is to destroy the current regime in Russia. Ideally, that would be the collapse of Russia. Ideal not only for Ukraine and Belarus, but for all of Europe.
Denys and Oleg: Should there ever be active fighting on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border, they will be there – on the Ukraine side.
Image: Andrea Beer
First distrust from the Ukrainians
Oleg is a few years older than the brown-haired Denys next to him. The self-confident-looking 27-year-old from Minsk has been in Ukraine since 2014 – when Russia started the war in Donbass, which culminated in the major invasion in February. Before Denys helped build the Belarusian Kalinovksy regiment, he said he fought in the Ukrainian Azov regiment, which he had joined indirectly, as he says.
His tattoos on his neck and arms peek out from under the Ukrainian uniform with Ukrainian-Belarusian insignia. On February 24 this year, Denys and Oleg also wanted to take up arms against Russia. But the Kiev police initially thought he and his friends were enemies, says Oleg.
We were a group of Belarusians and we wanted to go to the racecourse in Kyiv to get weapons that were distributed there, but there weren’t enough. Then we were arrested by the police in Kyiv because we had Ukrainian uniforms without identification and everyone thought we were Belarusian spies. We were held at bay with machine guns and had to lie on the ground. Then we were taken to the police station. There they realized that we are not saboteurs, but ordinary people who want to fight for Ukraine and Belarus. And they let us go.
Lukashenko dependent on Moscow
Belarus and Ukraine share a border that is around 1,000 kilometers long, and even before the major Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Belarusian dictator Lukashenko made his country a threatening deployment area for the Russian army. Lukashenko openly supports the Russian attack on the neighboring country, but does not want the Belarusian army to be directly involved. But after the democracy movement was crushed, the EU imposed sanctions that hit Lukashenko and his henchmen, as well as the system, badly.
That’s why the decades-long ruler is dependent on Moscow for better or for worse, and that has its price: Russian troops can use Belarusian military bases for their attacks on Ukraine, and Russian bomber planes take off there regularly, but then shell Ukraine from Russia. In addition, Russia has the right to permanently station troops in Belarus and makes use of it. According to Belarusian data, 9,000 Russian soldiers and military equipment were brought to Belarus in October this year.
Before the visit of Russian President Putin, Lukashenko stressed in Minsk: “After these talks, everyone will say that there is no power in Belarus and that the Russians are running around here and governing the country. I would like to underline that nobody except us here in Belarus does that say.”
Majority probably against Belarus’ entry into the war
The official Russian site published footage in December purporting to show Russian-Belarusian maneuvers in Belarus. However, many Ukrainian experts currently do not believe that the Belarusian army will invade neighboring Ukraine to the south, also because the majority of the population is against it.
Oleg and Denys from the Belarusian Kalinovksy regiment of the Ukrainian army think so too. Rather, he expects Russian soldiers to attack Ukraine again via Belarus.
We recently visited regions near the Belarusian border to have contacts in case something happens. It’s no secret that we asked those responsible in the Ministry of Defense to then be deployed in the direction of Belarus. We, as Belarusians, take this personally and we will also take prisoners. If there were Belarusian troops that would surrender.
After the documentary film about the Belarusian protest movement, Denys and Oleg tell the attentive audience about themselves and their motivation and then stand in the snow flurry in front of the small Kiev cinema. The event is over, but their story as Belarusians in the Ukrainian army is far from over.
Belarusian Regiment of the Ukrainian Army
Andrea Beer, WDR, 12/19/2022 08:36 a.m