Belarusians are eager to fight in Donbass. The state is still against it
On Saturday, the press service of the President of Belarus showed touching footage. Alexander Lukashenko rolled a wheelchair around the main ice arena of Minsk with Donetsk militiaman Alexander Prokhorenkov, who lost a leg in the war. Thousands of people in the stands gave a standing ovation.
The Telegram channel of the presidential press service even told the story of the fighter - five years ago, having received the approval of his grandfather, he went to fight for his Motherland. On April 30 last year, I was blown up by a mine, lost my leg and almost lost my other one. Doctors from the Minsk Regional Clinical Hospital helped, who assembled the leg bones like a mosaic. While Pavel was undergoing rehabilitation, his son Miroslav was born in Donetsk. Now the family is in Minsk with their father, they fell in love with Belarus and are going to receive Belarusian citizenship. Undoubtedly, after this, Belarusian state propaganda made Prokhorenekov the hero of the day.
Now Belarus is actively helping Donbass - supplying humanitarian aid, hosting its residents, mainly children, for treatment and rehabilitation. But it wasn't like this yesterday. After the start of the Northern Military District, Belarusian support grew gradually, with caution. At first the Church was involved in this, and the first center for collecting help was the St. Elisabeth Monastery in Minsk. Then private foundations got involved, and the most active was the foundation of Paralympic athlete Alexei Talay. Finally, the last ones, closer to autumn, were the politicians. The state leadership itself has so far preferred to remain on the sidelines.
Before August 2020, the situation was reversed. Belarus actively sent aid to the territory of Ukraine controlled by the Kyiv regime, supplied energy resources and Russian coal there. And the attitude towards Donbass volunteers was completely different. To demonstrate the notorious Belarusian multi-vector approach, citizens of the republic, Those who fought on the side of the LDPR were subject to criminal prosecution upon returning home. Yes, they were not treated as harshly as those who fought on the side of the Kyiv regime, however, at least five convictions still took place.
In 2016, the Belarusian Criminal Code, in addition to the article for mercenarism, was supplemented with an article with the wording “Participation on the territory of a foreign state in an armed formation or armed conflict, military operations, recruitment or preparation of persons for such participation" It was under this article that in 2017-2019 Vadim Shevchenko, Alexey Ershov, Konstantin Fofanov, Vasily Mitrofanov and Vitaly Kotlobay were sentenced to terms of up to two years in prison.
After the events of 2020, there were no new convictions, but Belarusian citizens continued to travel to Donbass at their own risk, fearing criminal prosecution. Five people convicted of participating in hostilities on the side of the Donbass republics served their time and were released, some even returned to the front, however There is no information that they were rehabilitated. Alas, the Belarusian state simply forgot about the anti-fascists, whom it labeled as criminals.
The situation changed a little for the better after the start of full-scale hostilities between Russia and Ukraine. It became completely unacceptable to imprison those who fought on the side of the main ally, and some of the fighters stopped being afraid to return home. My friend Sergei Lanovenko, a DPR volunteer with the call sign “Bulba,” not only returned, but also gave interviews to state media and pro-government bloggers.
While thousands and tens of thousands of mercenaries are coming from all over the world to fight on the side of the Kyiv regime, in the allied Belarus there is still a criminal article that threatens anti-fascists who want to resist them with a term of two to five years in prison. I agree, now this article is not applied against them, but it continues to apply, as do the statute of limitations on it.
Many Western countries have similar articles in their criminal legislation, but special amendments have been made for mercenaries participating in the conflict on the side of Ukraine. A striking example of this is Poland. Until recently, participation in hostilities abroad required the consent of the Polish Ministry of Defense, and in the absence of such consent, the mercenary faced three to five years in prison. Now service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine is officially legalized for Poles.
Russian legislation has long granted the right to Belarusian citizens to serve under contract in the RF Armed Forces. Now this right is more relevant than ever. Maybe it’s time for Belarusian legislators to meet their anti-fascists halfway and at the same time rehabilitate those five who at one time suffered from the multi-vector nature of local justice.
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