A series of senior Belarusian military officials have resigned and hundreds of young people of recruitment age have fled the country, according to senior opposition members in exile.
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This wave of defections and resignations prevented the Belarusian military from invading Ukraine as part of Russian President Vladimir Putin's planned takeover of the country last week.
Franak Viacorka, a senior adviser to exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, told Israel Hayom they had information indicating Putin's plan had been for the Belarusian military to join in the war effort in the early days of the invasion. The plan was foiled when several military officers resigned and fled the country. Upon fleeing Belarus, those senior officials contacted the opposition in exile.
"We know there is a high degree of demoralization among officers in the military," Viacorka said from the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. "In addition, there is a great deal of demoralization among conscripted soldiers, who are fleeing the country's borders en masse to any destination possible, including Russia, Kazakhstan, and the Baltic states."
He said, "In recent days, we have seen growing pressure from commanders of military units not to intervene in the fighting in Ukraine. There are officers who took sick leave, others who have asked to end their contracts with the military, even at the price of reimbursing all the expenses from their military service. We're talking about thousands of dollars."
According to Viacorka, "The biggest problem for them is that they have no practical way of leaving Belarus. In the past, they could have left for Georgia, but now all the flights there from Belarus have been canceled for the next six months. There are no flights to Western Europe, and it's very difficult to get flights to Istanbul. So the only way to defect is to cross the border with neighboring countries illegally. Many officers are still unwilling to risk this step."
Viacorka said the largest defection wave was seen in 2020 and followed electoral fraud in the presidential election and the brutal suppression of popular protests against the regime.
"Now there is a new wave. There are ways to leave Belarus," he said but emphasized, "They are dangerous and expensive. Belarus has made its military infrastructure available to the Russians, but Belarusian units have yet to enter Ukrainian territory. Moreover, we are seeing that units stationed adjacent to the border with Ukraine have been returned to their bases. It seems the decision to involve the Belarusian military in fighting was changed as a result of pressure from top brass and the refusal by simple soldiers to fight."
On the other hand, many Belarusian fighters – the equivalent of around five military units – have joined the Ukrainians to fight the Russians. The "partisan" movement of opponents of the Belarusian regime has deployed its people throughout the country to thwart the deployment of Russian military forces inside Belarus in preparation for an invasion of Ukraine.
One of the senior military figures reported by the opposition in exile to have resigned was Chief of the General Staff of the Belarusian Armed Forces Viktor Gulevich. A letter Gulevich apparently wrote to Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin in which he explained his resignation was due to the mass refusal by military units to take part in military operations against Ukraine, has gone viral online.
Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko denied last week any plans to fight alongside the Russians in Ukraine.
Nevertheless, human-rights organizations have reported Belarusian men aged 18 to 58 have been ordered to register with recruiting stations in person and to leave their cellphones and passports with the authorities to make it more difficult for them to flee the state. According to the reports, they are required to appear at the recruitment offices with family members, who are told they will be punished should their relatives not show up when they are called to fight for their country.
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