The Belarusian government is scrambling to thwart an internal guerrilla group that opposes Minsk’s aid to Russia and has waged a campaign of sabotage in Ukraine since the beginning of the war.
Earlier this week, opposition activists from the Association of Security Forces of Belarus (BYPOL), a group formed after the 2020 political unrest in Belarus, used drones to attack a Russian warplane outside the capital.
“Belarusians will not allow Russians to freely use our territory for the war with Ukraine and we want to force them to leave,” a retired Belarusian soldier who joined a group of saboteurs and goes by the name of Anton told the newspaper The Associated Press in a report Friday.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko during a meeting with senior military officials at the Obuz-Lesnovsky training ground in Belarus, January 6, 2023. (Andrei Stasevich/BelTA Pool Photo via AP)
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“Russians need to understand on whose side Belarusians are actually fighting,” he added.
Although Belarus does not directly interfere in Russia’s war effort, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is one of the few world leaders who has been vocal in his support of Vladimir Putin’s “military special operation,” and he has allowed Russian troops to enter northern Ukraine from his borders station.
Russia has also frequently relied on Belarusian airspace to launch missiles at Ukraine.
Lukashenko’s positive feelings about Putin’s war effort are not necessarily shared by many.
The sabotage group has sporadically attacked Belarusian train systems since the beginning of the war to prevent Russian supplies from reaching their troops on the southern border.
In this May 7, 2019 file photo, a Russian Beriev A-50 early warning and control trainer aircraft flies over Red Square during a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade in Moscow. (AP Photo/Alexander Semlianichenko, Pool, File)
Lukashenko also claimed earlier this week to have found the culprits behind a drone strike that hit a Russian Beriev A-50 that appeared to have had to be sent back to Russia for repairs.
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The authoritarian president claimed that a Ukrainian saboteur and more than 20 accomplices were arrested after the strike, although Belarusian saboteurs said otherwise on Friday.
“We are not familiar with the person Lukashenko was talking about,” BYPOL leader Aliaksandr Azarau said, adding that those involved in the attack successfully fled the country.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko at the Kremlin in Moscow. (Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)
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Ukraine has also denied being involved in sabotage attacks in Belarus.
“We have a two-headed enemy these days,” said Azarau, who also remains outside of Belarus. He added that the group aims to liberate Belarus “from Russian occupation” and from the Lukashenko regime.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.