But he believes the best attempt yet to oust Lukashenko – and Russian President Vladimir Putin, without whose support many in Belarus would quickly oust Lukashenko – has come with the war in Ukraine.
He is one of hundreds of Belarusians who have joined the fight here, inspired by their neighbor’s battlefield successes and determined to bring that momentum back to Belarus to end Lukashenko’s 28-year rule.
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Many of them joined the Kastus-Kalinouski Battalion, named after the leader of the Belarusian uprising against Russia in the 1860s. It is made up of Belarusians who are taking advantage of Ukraine’s wartime decision to allow foreigners to serve in the ranks of its armed forces, albeit not as officers. A dozen recruits interviewed by The Washington Post described their sense of common cause between Ukraine and pro-democracy movements in Belarus.
“Life is about leaps of faith,” Kulazhanka said this week during a break from training with an AK-47 assault rifle in a western Kyiv suburb. Around him, the sound of distant artillery fire rumbled through the air like a thunderstorm. “The fight against Lukashenko was one. Escape from Belarus was different. Throwing away my life in America was another. And if we fight here, we’ll make the biggest of them all.”
While Lukashenko’s military has yet to join Putin’s in Ukraine, Russian soldiers have been stationed in Belarus since before the start of the war, from where they have launched their main ground offensive into Kyiv and northern Ukraine.
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About 200 members of the volunteer battalion are serving on the front lines, including in Irpin on the outskirts of Kyiv, where Ukrainian forces recently regained control, Kulashanka and other recruits said.
They are mainly funded and equipped by donations from the Belarusian and Ukrainian diaspora, including the United States. But the battalion’s recent incorporation into the armed forces has meant that some have received arms and armor from the Ukrainian military, including some supplied by NATO.
Those leading the recruitment effort say there are thousands more who have expressed interest, but their screening and procurement of equipment has created a backlog. Many are dissidents arrested during protests over Lukashenko’s 2020 election victory, which they and international observers say was brazenly stolen.
In March, Vadim Prokopiev, a Belarusian restaurateur who has become one of the main organizers of Belarusian recruits from across Europe, met 14 of them at the Polish-Ukrainian border before leading them to a training site.
Few allowed their faces to be photographed and none agreed to provide their surnames because family members could be targeted in Belarus.
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“Basically, there are two wings,” Prokopiev said. “One already in Kyiv and one in western Ukraine. Here we train recruits intensively for two weeks – from tactics to digital hygiene. Then they move east in small groups and make their way to the front lines.”
Prokopiev said that out of thousands of interested parties from around the world, only about a hundred are in the pipeline at the moment. He said he expects more senior defecting officers to join soon, but for now most are untrained recruits.
While most said they had no prior combat experience, Some said they were victims of Lukashenko’s brutality, which filled them with a spirit of vengeance.
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“I only spent three nights in prison during the 2020 protests,” said Aleksandr, 38. “But it was enough to make me leave Belarus. I saw women begging not to be beaten, I saw a guy with long hair getting scalped. They put 70 of us in a small cell. It was pure brutality, as if we were enslaved humans or animals. I’m fighting here because I can’t go back until we topple Lukashenko. Defeating Putin in Ukraine is the first step towards freedom for both countries.”
One of the recruits who crossed the border that day, also named Aleks, was a Belarusian passport holder but ethnic Russian. The 61-year-old, the eldest in the group, described himself as a freethinker and a proud Russian who wanted to show Ukrainians that not all Russians supported the war – in fact, there were some like him who fought on their side.
“We have to prove that the Soviet mentality cannot last forever,” he said. “Putin is against kindness, truth and freedom. He opened old wounds. Unfortunately, we must fight to heal them, and it can cost us our lives.”
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Belarusian dissidents have warned that an invasion of Ukraine by the Belarusian military is imminent. The Ukrainian military has repeated these warnings, accusing Russia and Belarus of carrying out small-scale attacks on Belarus as a pretext for a Belarusian invasion, although these claims have not been substantiated.
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“According to my military sources, the battalions on the Belarusian side of the border are fully prepared for the invasion, they’re just waiting for it to start,” said Pavel Latushko, the former culture minister of Belarus, who defected to Poland a decade ago and has since protested organized and from there recruitments to the Ukraine are carried out.
“It’s obvious to me why Lukashenko hasn’t said to leave yet,” Latushko said. “He is a master of self-preservation and he knows that invading Ukraine could be the end of him. The morale of his soldiers is zero for this war. They will overflow in droves.”
Lukashenko dismissed the battalion as “crazy citizens” in a recent interview with Belarusian state media.
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In Ukraine, however, the hopes of Belarusian recruits are high that in the event of an invasion by the Belarusian army, the Belarusian soldiers would seize the opportunity to defect, and their Belarusian battalion was ready to welcome them.
“We are already thinking about how to get Belarusian troops to defect to our ranks,” said Sergey Bulba, who, along with Prokopiev, leads the recruitment and training efforts for Belarusians in Ukraine. “Many soldiers in the army already know in their hearts that the fates of Belarus and Ukraine are linked. Once they get out of the Belarusian propaganda bubble, they will know what to do.”