The Kalinouski Regiment

Nearly every day the evidence mounts that Putin's invasion of Ukraine was a blunder of breathtaking proportions. Case in point: The Kalinouski Regiment.

In the October issue of The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum writes about the Kalinouski Regiment, a military unit made up of Belarusian volunteers, formed in March to help defend Ukraine from the Russian invaders. The New York Times puts the current size of the growing regiment at nearly 500 troops. Members of the regiment oppose the Lukashenko regime in Belarus. They joined the Kalinouski Regiment to help Ukraine and receive NATO military training, with an eye to the long term goal of removing Lukashenko.

Belarus was a component of the USSR until it declared its independence in 1994, after the communist giant fell apart. In its first and only free and fair election, Belarus elected Alexander Lukashenko president. Lukashenko immediately began closing down the pillars of democracy in the country: free speech, free press, opposition parties, and free and fair elections. Nevertheless, Lukashenko's control of the country has always been tenuous, and he has depended on Russia, and Putin in particular, to help suppress his opposition and keep him in power. Most recently, he received Russian assistance to quell demonstrations throughout the country following his "victory" in the country's fraudulent 2020 elections.

 

 

Belarus

Belarus shares a 674 mile border with Ukraine on the south, and at its closest is less than 65 miles away from Kiev. The Russian attack on Kiev in February originated from Belarusian soil, though it did not include Belarusian soldiers. Lately Putin has been leaning on Lukashenko to commit huge numbers of troops to help rescue Russia's failing invasion, and Belarusian troops have been deployed in the last week to the Ukraine border, where they are reportedly organizing with Russian troops. 

But, though Putin may demand it, you can be sure that sending Belarusian troops into Ukraine is the last thing Lukashenko wants.  His hold on power is too tenuous. The absence of a large part of his army from the country, fighting in an increasingly unpopular war, will leave his regime exposed, and Russia is not in a good position to come to his aid, as it did in 2020.  And, long-term, he certainly sees that Belarus is on Putin's to-do list as the Russian president goes about his reconstruction of the Russian Empire of Peter the Great. 

The Kalinouski Regiment hopes to have something to say about that.