Tadeusz Gitsan, a Belarusian journalist and researcher at the Center for European Policy Analysis, explains why belligerent statements and statements made recently by Alexander Lukashenko and other officials in Minsk are actually aimed at a Western audience.

Gitsan mentions in a series of posts made on his page Twitter that the first trainloads of Russian troops began arriving in Belarus after Lukashenko announced last Monday that his country would deploy joint military forces with Russia, and Minsk’s defense ministry later said 9,000 Russian troops would be stationed on the border with Ukraine.

But a CEPA researcher shows that, judging by the photos that have appeared with Russian troops, the newly mobilized arrived in Belarus after September 21, when Vladimir Putin issued a decree on partial mobilization in Russia, and not regular units of the Russian army.

Gitsan also states that Russian military trains do not transport heavy equipment to Belarus, only trucks, oil tankers and passenger cars with soldiers.

In addition, he also says that Russian troops are not being taken to the border with Ukraine, as happened in February during military exercises used by Moscow as an excuse to send military units to Belarus, but to training bases in the north of the country. .

“That is, at this stage, we are almost sure that we are talking about the training of Russian reservists in Belarus, all Russian training grounds are overloaded,” he says.

Lukashenko helps Russia train recruits

This partly explains the information published by the Belarusian newspaper “Nasha Niva”, which wrote last week that Lukashenko issued a decree on covert mobilization in Belarus, but so far cooks, drivers, technical personnel and areas necessary for the rear guard have been summoned, assuming that the first wave mobilization will be aimed at military personnel who will be able to provide training for some recruits.

Gitsan says that in theory these recruits could be used to reinforce Russian troops already in Belarus after completing their training, but this is far from certain.

First, Russian troops appear to be arriving in Belarus without heavy equipment, despite official reports of this. Literally on Monday, the Ministry of Defense of Belarus announced that, in addition to 9,000 Russian troops, Moscow will send about 170 tanks, 200 armored vehicles and 100 units of artillery and mortars to the country.

“Videos circulating on Twitter in recent days purporting to show Russian tanks, armored personnel carriers and howitzers with ‘new threatening tactical markings’ arriving in Belarus are not real. Rather, the records are real, but they show the trains of the Belarusian army,” says Gitsan.

“It’s easy to identify by the blue cars (they are gray in Russia) and the triangular tactical signs adopted by the Belarusian army at the end of the summer,” he explains, adding that these Belarusian troops are not actually stationed on the border with Ukraine, but only about their rotation.

The Belarusian army handed over tanks to the Russians

Gitsan says that the brigades that have been stationed on the border with Ukraine in recent months are returning to their bases, being replaced by new troops, and the total number of troops near Ukraine will remain unchanged.

He also states that, although the Ministry of Defense of Belarus is talking about the arrival of Russian tanks in the country, in reality the situation looks quite the opposite: without an official statement on this matter, the ministry in Minsk last week ordered the transfer of 92 T-72A tanks and dozens of military trucks to Russia.

This was also referred to by the Institute for the Study of War in its assessment of the conflict in Ukraine, released last Wednesday.

“So, on the contrary, the Belarusian flank is weakened, not strengthened, and all Belarus can do is maintain visibility and loudly declare that Ukraine needs to be scared,” says the Belarusian researcher.

He says that some of the statements and threats made last week by Lukashenka and Viktor Grenin, his defense minister, are not even new, they are simply repeated one after the other for greater effect.

“The main target of these claims is the West. For the first time in his memory, the Ministry of Defense of Belarus decided to report on its actions in English and Spanish as well. A sharp contrast with February, when the attack was real and the Ministry of Defense of Belarus was silent,” recalls Tadeusz Gitsan.

Ukrainians have strengthened the border with Belarus

“The only real thing we’ve seen so far is the arrival of Russian recruits, the transfer of over 100 tanks and trucks to Russia, and ‘mobilization exercises’ in some areas of Belarus that look just as pathetic as those in Russia.” , the researcher summarizes.

He also mentions that the border between Ukraine and Belarus is almost completely covered by the Pripyat swamp, one of the largest in Europe, and that several sections of roads that the Russians attacked in February have been turned into a veritable “Mazhyno” by the Ukrainians. Line” on their side of the border, with minefields, defenses in depth, blown bridges and so on.

“They were attacked by a group [militar] A Belarusian-Russian point of contact in its current state would be suicidal, likely leading to Lukashenka’s political suicide. Therefore, no, there will be no attack from Belarus, at least not yet,” says Tadeusz Gitsan.

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