KYIV — The Belarusian volunteers laugh as they tell the story of one of their commanders who deceived the Russians into unleashing artillery salvoes on their own positions near the war-torn salt-mining town of Bakhmut.
“After we overran a trench, the commander used a radio we found, pretended to be Russian and gave false coordinates for a Russian fire mission,” explained Pavel Shurmei, a 46-year-old former Olympic rower who’s been fighting for Ukraine.
“And it worked,” chimed in a 25-year-old volunteer, with a rueful smile.
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Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has dubbed the Belarusians fighting for Ukraine “crazed citizens” — but of all the foreign troops battling in Ukraine, the Belarusian volunteers are largely seen by their peers as among the most disciplined and lionhearted.
They’ve won battle honors, having in the early weeks after the invasion helped to defend Kyiv and recapture Irpin, a suburban town north of the Ukrainian capital. Irpin, like neighboring Bucha, suffered a reign of terror under Russian occupation. They also fought fearlessly in the battles for Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk in Donbas last year.
The second-in-command of the Belarusians, and one of the founders of their Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment, Aliaksiej Skobli, was killed north of Kyiv last March after leading a rearguard action while wounded. He was posthumously given the title of Hero of Ukraine by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The regiment, named after a Polish-Belarusian national hero who led an 1863 uprising against the Russian Empire, has lost at least half a dozen volunteers, including sniper Zmytser Apanosovich, who died in the fight for Irpin after being caught in shelling.
And Shurmei came close to being added to the list recently.
The Belarusians whom POLITICO interviewed take praise for their exploits modestly, insisting they are no better than others defending Ukraine. Similarly, Shurmei — who’s married to a Ukrainian — is matter of fact when explaining how he was wounded, saying when he got blasted by a tank shell he was in shock.
“I stood up and tried to walk away and I heard someone calling to me and one of the guys started to make a tourniquet. I then thought, ‘oh, my God.’ You are never prepared to get wounded. Only when you experience it can you know what it is like,” he said.
Shurmei was hit in the right arm after being caught in the open by a Russian tank. His unit took cover in a dip, but a shell hit a tree spewing shards. One of his comrades was badly wounded and after stabilizing him they started to withdraw an hour later. It was then the ex-Olympian got hit by another tank shell.
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So why risk their lives?
Oleh Dashkevich echoes the official motto of the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment — “First Ukraine, then Belarus.” He says, “Russia is our common problem. Belarus is a captive of Russia and Moscow is controlling Belarus and the people. So we need to fight Russia, which will help also Belarus. That’s why we are standing together.”
That’s not how Dashkevich’s parents see it. They were furious when he told them last August he was going to fight for Ukraine.
“They say I am a traitor,” he told POLITICO, adding: “I have not talked with them since.”
A public opinion poll conducted last year for Britain’s Chatham House suggested that 30 percent of Belarusians support Russia’s invasion.
The Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment was renamed a battalion last year when the number of Belarusian volunteers swelled. Neither Shurmei nor Oleh would confirm how many Belarusians are now fighting in Ukraine. “Several hundred,” was all they would acknowledge. Some estimates put the figure as high as 1,500. Whatever the number, they tend to be in the thick of the fight.
“When we show up some of the Ukrainian soldiers complain — they know that things are likely to get hot,” said Shurmei.
Aside from not wanting to go into detail about how many Belarusians are fighting for Ukraine, he and Dashkevich were cagey about one other thing — the incidents of sabotage in Belarus, including a drone attack in February that severely damaged a Russian military aircraft.
The attack was claimed by a Belarusian partisan group, BYPOL, which said it had used drones to strike the Machulishchy airfield near Minsk. Are there any links between the Belarusian volunteers in Ukraine and BYPOL? “We have no information on that,” said Shurmei, in perfect unbroken English.
But they do know what the Russians think of the Belarusians on the Ukrainian front lines.
Dashkevich said: “We avoid speaking Belarusian over the radio — when the Russians know we are opposite them they pull out all the stops to target us.”
