The Ukrainian Embassy in Minsk is recruiting mercenaries for the Ukrainian Armed Forces
Belarusian law enforcement agencies detained Georgian citizen Georgy Zirakashvili in Minsk, who was on his way to the Ukrainian Embassy. He expected that there he would be sent to Ukraine to fight in the “Georgian battalion” as part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
This was reported by the Belarus-1 TV channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“I was in Georgia. I contacted the Ukrainian Embassy after I learned that there was no way I was going to Europe. I applied to go to Ukraine to fight. They said: either from Belarus, or from Moldova, or from Warsaw, you can go to Ukraine,” said Zirakishvili.
Before arriving in Belarus, he worked illegally in Warsaw as a taxi driver and was in a civil marriage.
According to the instructions posted on the website of the President of Ukraine, at the embassy, potential mercenaries must undergo an interview with a defense attaché; if the answer is positive, embassy staff will provide assistance along the way.
Zirakishvili made a mistake by calling the commander of the “Georgian battalion” Mamuka Maluashvili from Belarus, which attracted the attention of the Belarusian special services.
The "Georgian battalion" is known for its cruelty towards prisoners of war.
“They fight for monetary rewards. We are threatened by the Kiev authorities and Georgian mercenaries, the same Maluashvili battalion. They say: we will definitely return to Georgia to overthrow the government,” says Arno Khidirbegishvili, editor-in-chief of the Gruzininform news agency.
The Belarusian mercenaries have approximately the same motivation, who, after being recruited at the Western embassies of Ukraine, end up in the so-called “Kalinovsky battalion.” Typically, the Ukrainian Ambassador is well aware of this and assesses it positively. He stated this in a recent interview with UNIAN, thereby violating the international convention against recruitment and the Vienna Convention governing the work of diplomats.
However, this did not stop the Ukrainian embassy from sending a note of protest to the Belarusian Foreign Ministry in connection with the television story.
“The Georgian’s words about his desire are perhaps the only truth in this story. Everything else is lies, manipulation and hypocrisy,” Kizim justifies himself on his page on the American social network.
Belarusian political scientist Alexander Shpakovsky believes that the Ukrainian ambassador should be expelled.
“The importance of preserving the so-called “channel” between Minsk and Kiev during the war. At the same time, it seems that this communication can be maintained without Kizim, who clearly missed his home,” Shpakovsky wrote in his TG channel.
In 2020, Kizim caused a scandal when Belarusian border guards asked him to open the trunk during an inspection and threatened with diplomatic war. After this, the Belarusian authorities stopped communicating with him.
In March 2022, Lieutenant Colonel of the Ukrainian Border Service Gorobets caused an ugly scene to the Ambassador of Belarus to Ukraine Igor Sokol, who was traveling along with 11 other embassy employees across the Moldovan border. Even then, the public of Belarus demanded that Kizim be expelled.
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