Weird Newsweek story about Belarus and the Russia-Ukraine war

Here’s another piece on the role Belarus, the Russian ally to Ukraine’s north, plays in the Ukraine-Russia war. And the role it’s not playing, that is, as an active military combatant: Brendan Cole, Could Belarus Join Vladimir Putin's Troops in Ukraine? Newsweek 08/13/2022.

To those of us not privy to highly classified documents at Mar-a-Lago or elsewhere, it may seem surprising that Belarus isn’t using its armed forces in Ukraine. What seems to have been Russia’s hope to seize Kiev quickly didn’t work out that way. And the war looks to be in more-or-less a stalemate, though it seems there are rumors of new “offensives” every few days.

Belarus participated in the Russian troop maneuvers that preceded the war. One might suppose this would be a good time for Russia to call on its close ally for military help. Belarus’ President Aleksandr Lukashenko, who has held that office since 1994, was until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this year commonly referred to as “Europe’s last dictator.” Now that we have a New Cold War (more-or-less), of course now Putin is the New Hitler – America’s Big Bad of the moment is always the New Hitler – I guess we can’t call Lukashenko the last dictator any more.

But this is still surprising. First: "Anyone openly speaking out against Putin's war will be treated like an opponent of the regime, posing danger in a country that retains the death penalty and has seen regular reports of protesters dying in custody."

Then comes this:

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Army said that Belarusian troops had been testing their readiness in the Brest and Gomel border regions.

However, senior officers from Belarus's special forces have warned in an open letter to Lukashenko that sending Belarusians to fight alongside Russians would be "pure suicide." Also, deploying troops who are not considered to be combat ready to a war Belarusians do not want risks further unrest for Lukashenko.

Konrad Muzyka, a defense analyst who focuses on Belarus and Russia, expected Lukashenko to recognize the independence of the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics at the start of the war and then send in his troops to Ukraine.

"But neither of these things happened," he told Newsweek, "I was very surprised by this. As the war has dragged on, my assessment has changed. Now I don't expect him to commit troops, if it hasn't happened already."

Muzyka, who is the director of Rochan Consulting, said that he has tracked Belarusian troops near the border where they have been undertaking "serious" exercises, albeit on a small scale.

This could point to not preparing for war but a plan to "tie up Ukrainian forces near the border with Belarus to make sure that these guys are not deployed to Donbas or Kherson or anywhere else."

Much of the first part of the article is about the severity of the rule of the Once-Last Dictator of Europe, and quotes Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a major opposition leader in exile, at some length. They also quote a pseudonymous oppositionist in Poland:

"It's not only about Lukashenko now in Belarus, because they have a lot of Russian officers now in Belarus who are making orders."

"It's like a double occupation in Belarus now. We have Lukashenko who is actually beating people and there is a lot of repression," she said, "and we have Russians who are even much worse than Lukashenko."

So, on the one hand, the Once-Last Dictator is ruling with an iron hand. But the country is half-controlled by Russians, or something. But serving officers in the Once-Last Dictator’s armed forces are publishing an open letter practically threatening to murder him (“pure suicide”) if he sends Russian troops to Ukraine? This is pretty clearly a hodgepodge of information that is some combination of dodgy and poorly explained.

Lukashenko in the last couple of years has clearly tilted more heavily toward Russia. But for a long time he tried to strike some kind of balance between Russia and the EU, though careful to stay on friendly terms with Russia. And to the extent Putin’s government really is operating on some sort of Greater Russia annexationist ambitions – as the New Cold Warriors gleefully assume – Belarus would be a part of that vision. And certainly part of the Eurasian Union that Putin has been working to build.

So, there are different reasons why Lukashenko may not be sending his regular armed forces into Ukraine now. Or, yet.

1. The Russians might not want him to, because it might look Russia look weak to rely on Belarusian troops.
2. The Russians may not want him to at this time. There are surely contingency plans of some sort in both Moscow and Minsk.
3. Lukashenko sees the costs of direct intervention as notably greater than the cost of disappointing Putin. The one active war Russia currently has with a western neighbor country isn’t looking all that promising for Russia at the moment and no quick end is in sight. So a Russian threat to invade Belarus or overthrow Lukashenko may not look so immediately threatening as it might have six or seven months ago.

There's another curious item in the Newsweek report:

[Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya] said Belarusian partisans sabotaged railway lines against important supply routes at the start of the invasion, when Russian missiles were fired from Belarus' territory toward Ukraine. 

Information was also passed on to Ukrainian forces about bases from where the Russian missiles were fired and this resistance would be repeated if Belarusian troops were forced to fight.

Ukraine hinted at Belarusian partisan involvement behind explosions on Wednesday at the Ziabrovka airfield, in the Gomel region, where Russian aircraft are reportedly stationed. [my emphasis]

Assuming that there are anti-Russian partisans militarily active in Belarus, the obvious question is who is running them and/or supporting them? Presumably it’s not Russia. The anti-intervention Belarusian officers reported as publishing an open death threat to Lukashenko? Possible, but still seems unlikely.

Bottom line: this is a story that’s both very interesting and very odd.