They call themselves the Pohonya Battalion, a group of less than 30 Belarusian exiles living mainly in Poland and other European countries, hoping to join hundreds of their compatriots already fighting the battle for Ukraine.
Ambitious volunteer fighters say that in order to free their country from the grip of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he must first be defeated in Ukraine.
The group, which ranges in age from 19 to 60, wears Kalashnikov replicas. Almost no one has combat experience.
Among them are a professional poker player, a rock musician and an electrician.
They are led by dissident and restaurateur Vadim Prokopiev. “We see a window of opportunity,” Prokopiev told CNN on Monday.
“I called on the Belarusians to join the battle for Ukraine, because this is a step one before the second step, which is the battle for Belarus.
Most members, including Prokopiev, were forced to flee their country in 2020 when Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko – a Kremlin-backed ally of Putin – crushed a mass protest movement after he declared victory in a highly contested election, which was overshadowed from fraud.
“If Ukraine loses this war, Belarus will have no chance of liberation,” Prokopiev said. “If Ukraine wins this war, it means that Putin’s hands are too busy and he is too weak and will not support Lukashenko with resources.”
Pohonya wants to join the International Legion of Defense of Ukraine, a military unit made up of foreign volunteers, but at the time of writing they have not yet been accepted.
Hundreds of other Belarusian volunteers are already on the scene, fighting alongside Ukrainian troops. Four have been killed since the start of the war, Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said.
“The people of Belarus understand that the fate of Belarus depends on the fate of Ukraine, and now it is very important to make Ukraine free to make it easier to get rid of the Lukashenko regime on our land,” Tikhanovskaya told CNN on Wednesday.
Moscow is using Minsk as a satellite base for its unprovoked war against Ukraine. At the beginning of the conflict, Putin ordered troops to enter Ukraine across the Russian and Belarusian borders.
Belarus has been used as a springboard for many of Russia’s air operations in Ukraine, according to intelligence gathered by NATO reconnaissance planes.
And the Ukrainian military says they shot down several rockets fired into its territory by Belarus.
After Russia failed to conquer the desired land around Kyiv, the forces withdrew back to Belarus to regroup and redistribute.
And NATO fears the Kremlin may even call on Lukashenko to deploy his army to support Moscow’s forces on the battlefield. This is a perspective that will see Belarusian exiles and the Minsk army from opposite sides of the front line.
The Biden administration punished Minsk with sanctions against Belarusian defense companies, the country’s defense minister, and suspended normal trade relations with the country.
But Lukashenko has shown no remorse for his role as mediator. “We have not started this war, our conscience is clear. I am glad it has started,” he told reporters in March.
Earlier this week, Putin thanked Lukashenko for his unwavering support, saying: “We have never doubted that if anyone has to lend a hand, it will be Belarus.”
Belarus’s resistance, broken and fragile after the 2020 crackdown, said the volunteers were part of a broader effort to destabilize the Lukashenko regime.
“All these Belarusian fighters are real heroes,” Tikhanovskaya told volunteers. “Now they are defending Ukraine and maybe one day they could defend Belarus,” she said, referring to the opposition’s desire to see the overthrow of the Lukashenko regime.
In Belarus, a railway line used by Russian ferry forces in Ukraine was partially cut off by activists in April when Belarusian police opened fire and arrested three men, calling it a terrorist act, according to the Belarusian state news agency Belta.
And cyber activists have recently hacked into Belarusian state institutions involved in the war against Ukraine and continue to fight Russian disinformation online, Tikhanovskaya said.
But these small measures still do not pose a real threat to the 28-year rule of Lukashenko, often called Europe’s last dictator.
“The long journey starts somewhere, so we are building a small force to build a larger force,” Prokopiev said.
Now the exiles hope that Lukashenko’s reliance on Moscow links his future to Putin and the result of what has so far been an unstable military invasion of Ukraine.
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