Is a new war front looming?
Putin’s leader hails Belarus’ 'fighting spirit’

10/21/2022 11:44 AM

According to its commander, it is intended to accomplish „any mission”: a new unit that includes thousands of Russian and Belarusian armed forces. Anyway, it feeds fears again. „Lukashenko and Putin are leading our country to war,” said Belarusian opposition leader Tichanovskaya.

Thousands of Russian soldiers have taken up positions with tanks and other heavy military equipment in Belarus – amid Moscow’s difficult position in the war against Ukraine. Russian Deputy Commander Viktor Smyan said on state television that they are forming a new unit with the Belarusian Armed Forces to perform any task. “The fighting spirit is there.” But the deployment of hundreds of armored vehicles has raised fears that the head of the Belarusian Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, may open a new front in his war against Ukraine. As early as February, at the beginning of the war, Russian units visited from the Gomel region in southern Belarus to northern Ukraine – and from there they were not far from Kyiv. So far, eyewitnesses have reported increased military activity in the area.

In Belarus, Governor Alexander Lukashenko insists that he will not interfere in the war in Ukraine, but will focus only on defense. But Ukraine considers Belarus a warring party since Putin’s war broke out about eight months ago. At that time, Lukashenko made military bases in Belarus available for Russians to launch attacks on the neighboring country. The fact that Russia’s massive military presence is now permanently rings alarm bells for many. „Lukashenko and Putin are dragging our country into war, lying that there is a threat coming from the Ukrainian side,” complains opposition leader Svetlana Tichanovskaya, who lives in exile in neighboring Lithuania. Many people in Belarus consider her the winner of the 2020 presidential election, after which Lukashenko remained in power with violence and with the help of Putin.

“Lukashenko is a disgrace to my country,” says Tichanovskaya, who sees the abdication of Russian soldiers in the country as further evidence of Putin’s loyalty. Lukashenko no longer makes any decisions himself, the Kremlin controls politics in Belarus, assures Tichanovskaya.

On the Kremlin Distillery

The country, which was sanctioned by the West during the post-election crackdown on protests, is also economically dependent on Russia. The military leadership of Belarus has repeatedly emphasized that the joint unit formed with Russian soldiers is used exclusively for defense. However, because Lukashenko himself recently announced that he has introduced the country’s „anti-terror operation system”, observers suspect that there is much at stake here from joint and defensive exercises. Representatives of the apparatus of power in Minsk claim almost every day that Belarus can be attacked – for example, by NATO member Poland. Like Putin, the head of the KGB, Ivan Tertil, said that neighboring countries could carry out terrorist attacks in Belarus, prepare for a military attack or even be ready for a nuclear attack. There is no evidence for that.

„It cannot be excluded that Lukashenko actually feared military attacks or attacks by saboteurs against Belarus,” says exiled political scientist Artyom Schreibman in his Telegram blog. Hundreds of Belarusian volunteers are fighting for Ukraine, and at the same time the Belarusian opposition in Lithuania and Poland is militarizing.

At the same time, Schreibman emphasizes, there is a widespread consensus in Belarus that Belarusian soldiers should not take part in the war in Ukraine. There is no social basis in society on which Lukashenko can rely. Schreibman sees the „risk of destabilizing the Belarusian regime” if Lukashenko accepts any kind of pressure from Putin to fight with his soldiers in Ukraine.

Expert: Lukashenko does not want to be on the losing side

Expert Valery Karpelevich also expects Lukashenko to resist being drawn into war with his soldiers. He sees „the war in Ukraine going in vain for Russia” – and doesn’t want to be on the losing side in the end. For Moscow, the opening of a new front for a new advance in Kyiv – as at the beginning of the war – is unfavorable. There are almost no roads, the terrain there is swampy and hardly suitable for tanks and other heavy military equipment.

Karpelevich also notes that the Belarusian army is weak, with only about 15,000 well-trained special forces. In a real war, this number does not matter. Instead, the expert assumes that the Russian presence is primarily used to train soldiers so that they can then be sent to the front in Ukraine. “Russia itself does not have sufficient infrastructure, military training areas to train new recruits,” Karpelevich says.

Putin is currently recruiting 300,000 reservists to fight in Ukraine. The head of the Kremlin stressed that they should be sufficiently prepared to deploy to the front. Belarus has identified the number of 9,000 Russian soldiers now stationed in the country. However, there is no specific information about their duties. In Minsk, Defense Minister Viktor Kerinin emphasized that it was all about the protection of Belarus. The basis of his country’s military policy is „to sit at the negotiating table and reach an agreement.”