Belarusians are among the foreign fighters who’ve taken up arms in Ukraine. They believe weakening Russia would also weaken their president, Alexander Lukashenko.
Weakening Putin, the Belarusian volunteers believe, would also weaken Lukashenko, who has held power since 1994, and create an opening to toppleFor many of the Belarusians, their base is Poland, a country along NATO’s eastern flank that borders Belarus and Ukraine and which became a haven for pro-democracy Belarusian dissidents before becoming one for war refugees from Ukraine.
“When the Ukraine war will be eventually over, our war will just start. It is impossible to free the country of Belarus without driving Putin’s fascist troops out of Ukraine,” he said. Massive street protests against a 2020 election widely seen as fraudulent were met with a brutal crackdown, leading to Prokopiev’s belief that no “velvet revolution” can be expected there.On Saturday, a group of men with another unit, Kastus Kalinouski, gathered in Warsaw in the Belarus House, where piles of sleeping bags, mats and other Ukraine-bound equipment were piled high. They sat together, talking and snacking on chocolate and coffee as they prepared to deploy to Ukraine later in the day.
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