It was an authoritarian country, but has become a dictatorship in which Alexander Lukashenka is trying to rule with terror and fear. Belarus is a country where there are 1,450 political prisoners and where Andrzej Poczobut, a journalist and activist of the Union of Poles in Belarus (ZPB) has been sentenced to eight years in a penal colony for allegedly “spreading hatred” and “rehabilitating Nazism”. The Prosecutor’s Office has recently demanded 19 years in prison (in absentia) for the head of the United Transitional Cabinet, Sviatlana Heorhiyeuna Tsikhanouskaya (remains in Vilnius) and her closest associate, Pavel Latushko (live in Warsaw). Meanwhile Belarusian “guerilla fighters” are destroying the rail network and have attacked a Russian plane.

The situation is particular. After the rigged presidential election in 2020 and after the brutal treatment thousands of protesters – many of whom were beaten, imprisoned and sentenced – a number of western countries don’t recognize Lukashenka as president. His main counter-candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, formed an emigration government, and in Poland (but not only) she is addressed by many as “Mrs. President”. As a matter of fact this is already the second Belarusian emigration authority as there also exists the Belarusian Democratic Republic (which had been in power shortly before the end of WWI) headed by Canada-based Ivonka Survilla.

Lukashenka, who earlier attempted to manoeuver between Russia and the West has now only ally: Vladimir Putin. And in practice, he fulfills all his demands, which has reduced Belarus to the role of Russia’s vassal. The Belarusians do not participate in the war against Ukraine, it is true, but they have, but they have made their bases and training ground available to the Russian army, just as they have given it a major part of their military equipment.

From the Polish point of view the situation I appalling – for Lukashenka our country is an enemy, Poles living on the Neman or Svislach are suffering indeed, the ZPB has been crushed, the Polish education is going into liquidation, Polish media have been closed down by the authorities.

Conviction for a poem

Just a few years ago, opposition parties and organizations in Belarus were functioning normally. Admittedly, they had negligible possibilities of action and zero chance of winning the elections (unless Lukashenka, feigning democracy, gave them some single seats in parliament or local councils), but they existed. Now the old groups are in disarray, and it is difficult to talk about new ones, because officially they do not operate on the territory of Belarus – and the only known ones are those that are Poland or Lithuania. Because today, even for writing a comment unfavorable to the authorities on social media, you can go to prison. In fact, it is dangerous to carry an umbrella in white and red, because the white-red-white flag, considered to be opposition, is simply forbidden, and displaying it means anti-state activity.

The Belarusian authorities, of course, do not publish information about sentences in political cases. Anyway, such sentences are not called political – depending on the needs, it is indicated that the accused threatened the security of the state, the stability of society, or even carried out extremist or terrorist activities. However, it is enough to look at the tweets of the human rights organization Viasna (Spring). Here are some of the latest:

– Alexei Vecherny, aged 62, was sentenced for writing an anti-war poem to 1 year and 9 months in a penal colony. After the shelling of Ukraine from Belarusian territory began, he recorded the poem on camera and posted it on TikTok. It contained words that allegedly insulted Lukashenko. And the president of Belarus must not be insulted.

– Alena Miroshnychenko, a resident of Orsha, acting in defense of animals, was sentenced to 15 days in prison for a humorous appeal to meet and celebrate ... the opening of a cat house. Judge Yulia Vershinina noted “the nature and degree of harm of the crime committed, aimed at destabilizing the situation in society and the state”. It turned out that, according to the court, Miroshnichenko wanted to organize... an illegal assembly.

– Andrei Raptunovich was sentenced to 4 years in prison for intending to join the Volunteer Regiment of Konstanty Kalinowski, fighting on the side of Ukraine in the war against Russia.

– Viktoria Nowitska was sentenced to a year and a half in a penal colony. The reason: she is the sister of Jan Melnik, a volunteer fighting in Ukraine in the Regiment of Kalinowski.

Danuta Peradnya, a 21-year-old “classified’ as “terrorist”, was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for re-sharing a post on social media criticizing Putin and Lukashenko on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The KGB put her on the “terrorist list”, and the Interior Ministry – on the “list of extremists”. SIGN UP TO OUR PAGE There is also a lot of information about the terrible treatment of prisoners. A former lieutenant colonel of the militia, who burnt his uniform in protest against the authorities’ actions, was detained in the Minsk remand in Akreshina St. He spent 46 days in solitary confinement – on concrete, in winter. He was released in a serious condition.

Trauma behind bars

Belarusian detention centers, prisons and penal colonies are places where, as a rule, inhumane conditions prevail. Being behind bars means severe trauma. And so it has been for years, only that now there are more prisoners.

The Belarusian-language portal “Nasha Niva” published an article about the “American Woman”, as the detention center of the KGB in Minsk is called. It is worth mentioning that “Nasha Niva” is one of the oldest weeklies (and one of the few Belarusian-language magazines), but it was closed down by the authorities. The portal is unavailable in Belarus, and the pages of “Nasha Niva” on social media have been considered extremist.

Coming back to the “American Woman”: there are two two-level metal bunks in the cells, as well as wooden stools and a table. The walls are mildewed because there is high humidity - ventilation is very poor, there are usually many prisoners in the room, who also try to wash their underwear and have no way to dry it. As a result, clothes get mildewed too. In the “American Woman”, some cells have toilets; in others, a bucket of water (or rather, washing up) is delivered daily, and prisoners go to the toilet only on schedule, morning and evening.

TV Belsat also described the places of detention of Belarusian prisoners in a series of articles. One of them was dedicated to another prison in Minsk, the so-called Volodarka, where most of the prisoners are “political”. There are toilets in most cells and a place to wash yourself, but when there are more than twenty people in one room, it is quite difficult. The cell is managed by the “senior” – the one who sits the longest. It’s the “senior” who talks to the guards.

Some of the detainees are sent to a hard prison in Zhodino, also described by Belsat; Andrzej Poczobut spent many months there. The entire prison area is surrounded by a double line of security. The prison has a network of underground passages – detainees go there from one place to another, escorted by guards.

As one of the political prisoners related, they were brought in late at night: “Near the avtozak (car transporting the detainees) there were guards with truncheons. We were lined up in two rows and told to run with our heads down and our hands behind our backs. We ran and were hit with sticks (…). All this was accompanied by insults directed at us. We ran down the hall, up the stairs, still with our heads down. The corridors of the prison are wide, painted with dirty red paint”.

Upon arrival, they were stuffed into “glasses” – meter-by-meter cells. There were ten people in each. While waiting for the search, one had to stand up straight in such a “cell” for up to ten hours. Then they were all sent to “normal” cells – rooms 6 meters long and 2-4 meters wide. A metal door with a grille of metal bars in front of it; a grille and metal mesh in the window, practically no sunlight. The cell has a metal toilet and a sink, a concrete floor and metal bunk beds. There are up to 12 detainees (or convicted prisoners) in the cells.

When the cells are overcrowded, prisoners have to take turns sleeping. The light is on day and night. Every 15 minutes, the duty inspector looks into the cell to ensure order. The solitary confinement is located in the basement: it is a room measuring two and a half by ten paces, with a concrete “stump” in the middle, where you can sit only during meals. At other times - from 8:00 to 22:00 – you have to stand or walk.

The food is terrible: the portions are very small, and the main diet is sprat fish soup, sprat pâté, sauerkraut, usually rotten potatoes. More or less decent food is served during the inspection of the prison administration: then prisoners can get porridge and even pea soup and pasta. “I am in a GULAG,” one of the inmates wrote to his wife, quoted by Radio Svoboda.

Convicts are also sent to penal colonies. The latter are reached by special sleeping cars: a corridor and a row of barred compartments. There are three levels of beds, or rather shelves, in the compartments, although even 24 convicts can nest on six shelves. Arriving in the colony is as traumatic as being arrested: dogs bark, guards hit the car with clubs. Prisoners go outside and have to crouch in the so-called “patsan squat”. Then there is the “shmon” (search) and the “quarantine” where documents are filled out and prison clothes are picked up.

In quarantine, you sit for up to a month, outside all day long, regardless of the weather and temperature. Then there is the “distribution” – the bosses of the colony decide which branch will you go to. Each ward has its own specialization: woodworking, furniture production, sewing, cleaning services – “balandiory” (“balanda” meaning food in the prison language). Each ward consists of separate two- and three-story barracks, as well as a room with a TV set and benches. It is not allowed to walk around the camp alone, only as part of a group. Groups go to work, to the canteen or to the outpatient clinic…

Guerilla fighters in a dictatorial state

If this is what Belarus looks like today, how is it possible that there are some “Belarusian guerrilla fighters”, that is to say: organized and armed opponents of Lukashenka?

There is this BYPOL organization, an association of Belarusian “siloviks” (lit. people of force), former and apparently also current employees of the militia and special services. On the organization’s website, we can read that “the process of creating an organization is currently underway, especially among active employees [services] living in Belarus, thanks to which we receive up-to-date and confidential information from the inside. The emergence of such an initiative is an unprecedented event in the entire history of the 26-year rule of A. G. Lukashenka. This became possible after the illegal seizure of power by the dictator A. G. Lukashenka and the establishment of complete lawlessness in the country. Honest officers began to leave the service en masse, and the most competent and professional of them became the core of BYPOL.

Their “public representatives” are militiamen – Lieutenant Colonel Alaksandr Azarau, Second Lieutenant Uładzimir Zhihar, Lieutenant Matvei Kupriejczyk and Lieutenant Colonel Stanislaw Lupanosau.

It was on the initiative of BYPOL that the “rail guerrillas” came into being. As Alaksandr Azarau told Svoboda a year ago, BYPOL appealed to Belarusians who want to help Ukraine to contact us. The main task was to slow down the traffic on the railway so that Russia could not transport equipment, ammunition and military personnel through Belarus towards Kiev, which the Russians were trying to capture at the time. 5,000 people came forward. And even before the outbreak of war, the organization “Storks are flying” published instructions on how to easily damage railway tracks.

The first action after the outbreak of the war took place on February 26. Unknown persons damaged the equipment near Osipoviche. On February 27, railway workers reported that the railway junctions in Minsk and Orsha had been paralyzed. At least eleven such actions were carried out by the end of March. The guerrilla fighters put wood logs on the tracks and set them on fire, they connected rails with wire, which closed the semaphore (the sensor showed that a train was moving on the tracks).

On February 27 and March 2, 2022, they launched successful attacks on the Belarusian railway internet network. It was impossible to buy tickets, issue documents, and trains had to be controlled manually.

Apparently, there were many more such activities. But none of them had such publicity as the destruction of the Russian A-50 electronic reconnaissance aircraft in Machulishche. According to Azarau, the guerrillas used drones. The entire undertaking was carried out by two Belarusians participating in the “Pyeramoha” (“Victory”) plan, who quickly left the country. Franak Viachorka, a Belarusian oppositionist and chief political adviser to Tsikhanouskaya, tweeted that the plane (one of nine that Russia has) was severely damaged.

And in Ukraine, a regiment named after Konstanty Kalinowski (Belarusian. Polk named Kastus Kalinouskah) fights the Russians. Kalinowski was one of the leaders of the January Uprising in the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania; nearly one and a half thousand volunteers from Belarus fight in the regiment. Interestingly, this unit does not recognize the cabinet formed by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, but maintains contacts with the authorities of the Belarusian Democratic Republic, including Ivonka Survilla.

Everything depends on the war

The media have recently reported on an alleged Russian plan to subjugate Belarus. In fact, such a plan has been around for a very long time. The problem is that Lukashenka opposed it for a long time – he wants to be the head of an independent state, not a subordinate executor of Russian orders. Today, the Belarusian dictator no longer has the possibility to protest. But it was at his own request.

In fact, everything depends on the further course of the Russian-Belarusian war and the fate of Vladimir Putin. Paradoxically, Putin, who is weakening, may want to achieve some success – for example, in the form of accelerating the integration of both countries, today only formally forming the Union of Belarus and Russia. The result may be an attempt by the Russian ruler to change the office of president of Belarus and put someone more obedient there. But in the long term, a Russian defeat and possible changes in the Kremlin may also mean the downfall of Lukashenka.

There is one unknown factor in all that: the aforementioned Belarusian “guerilla fighters”. Well, and the Belarusian society which – although it has gone silent – may turn out to be much more ready for radical action. For Belarus has changed which is what neither Lukashenka nor Putin understands.

– Piotr Kościński
– Translated by Dominik Szczęsny-Kostanecki

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists