Roman Bessmertny: Lukashenko Better Keep Quiet

Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania should organize the liberation of Belarus.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky warns about the threat from Belarus, while Kiev makes it clear: if Minsk gets involved in war again, the response will be tough.

Why is there so much talk now about the threat from Lukashenko's regime? How real is it?

About this and more, the site Charter97.org talked to a Ukrainian politician and diplomat, former Ukrainian ambassador to Belarus Roman Bessmertny:

- Let's draw a line of demarcation here. One thing is the territory of Belarus, quite another is Lukashenko and his regime. The fact that the territory of Belarus was and remains a springboard created by Putin to attack Ukraine, Central and Northern Europe is true.

In fact, this is noted even in key NATO documents. Since 2012, NATO documents have always stated that the permanent creation of a springboard for attack against the Alliance countries on the territory of Belarus is a problem.

And this is indeed true, because even in the current situation, the territory of Belarus is used to send saboteurs to Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. And this sending took place both when the border crossings were open, legally, and now, when they are closed, illegally.

By the way, saboteurs are being trained on the territory of Belarus. They are prepared from among the recruited citizens of Asian and African countries, as well as among Russians, Belarusians and so on. Former Wagnerites are engaged in training. This is not a secret, intelligence agencies all over the world know about it.

As for the threat of Lukashenko's regime, unfortunately for him, he has nothing to threaten. What the Belarusian army is today, in the current war, is a conscript army. It is not an army that is capable of solving problems. The special operations forces are small in number, and they will play no role. The gendarmerie, on the other hand, is at war with Belarusians. As for the technological basis, all ammunition has been exported to Russia and has been used long ago. Armored vehicles and tanks in such quantity do not pose a threat neither to Ukraine, nor to Western countries. The aviation is small in number.

What can it be? It is the use of the territory of Belarus to launch drones, which today are produced and escorted with illumination from antennas on the territory of Belarus. This is the first.

Second: it is indeed possible to launch ballistic missiles. But the problem here is that proximity does not make it possible to launch such missiles, because they have a minimum and maximum range. Firing them into the middle of the Black Sea hardly makes sense. Unless we use short-range missiles.

Belarus still has SS-21/Tochka-U missile systems, they have been modernized. Unless they can be used. But this is not a factor that can seriously influence and play the role of a participant in some operations. Therefore, I do not see any threats from Belarus itself and Lukashenko's regime. But as for the use of the territory, bridgehead and resources of Belarus, it was, is and will be, because Lukashenko is not independent.

- What can Putin actually prepare in the near future, including from the Belarusian bridgehead? What role in these plans may be assigned to Lukashenko and the Belarusian army?"

- Talks about a possible attack against the Baltic countries and Poland are not accidental. It is possible. And here we should not take the dependence on the situation on the Russian-Ukrainian front as a basis. It has absolutely nothing to do with it.

There is enough strength of a certain component to launch such a strike. Because the purpose of such a strike will be not so much to achieve some strategic goal as to solve a tactical issue.

First, it is to test the fifth article of NATO, which is what everyone is writing about today. The second is to strike some tactical blow by occupying territory, and then, of course, to enter into negotiations to start using diplomacy as a weapon against European countries.

As we understand, there are two very dangerous points here. The first is how effective is the fifth article of NATO. And the second, even worse, is dragging Europe into the negotiation process. All the more so because everyone understands perfectly well: for Putin, negotiations are not a way to achieve peace, but a war, a tool of war. Therefore, even at the level of human psyche, the one who sits down at the negotiating table with Russia and does not understand this has already lost in advance.

- "Madiar" stated that 500 targets on the territory of Belarus have already been selected. What can these targets be and in what case Ukraine can start striking them?

- International law very clearly defines what is a legitimate military target. Therefore, there can be no ambiguous interpretations here. A legitimate military objective is something that is intended to wage war and defeat the enemy. So everything is clear here: what those objectives are, what those objectives are, and why they are chosen.

What about these conversations, you know, there's a spin and spinning of this dialog here. For people who haven't used this terminology before, it looks very scary. In fact, here, some words are being answered with other words. Is there a concrete action behind it? What they say from the Ukrainian side is understandable, because Ukraine has the ability to make such strikes, and it has been demonstrated more than once.

In such a situation Lukashenko is better to keep quiet. If you maraud with Putin together - keep quiet, sit down, don't tease. But he does not keep silent, and this entails such verbal dialogs, verbal battles, no more and no less.

What can be in the list of legitimate military objectives? Something that even in the current situation takes part in strikes on the territory of Ukraine. The same antennas that stand, the units that maintain them, the resource that goes into all of this. All these things have been fixed a long time ago: the people, the combatants who maintain all this. So everything is absolutely clear here.

- In 2022, you said that Belarus and Crimea are the Kremlin's pain points that can paralyze Putin's regime. How relevant is that assessment now? Should Ukraine be more active in helping liberate Belarus as part of an overall victory over Russia?"

- Ukraine should not only help. Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania should organize the liberation of Belarus for Belarusians. I adhered to this point of view and I still do.

I spoke then about the need for contact and dialog with the Belarusian opposition. From my point of view, even then it was necessary to help the opposition to form a government in exile, to ensure its work, to start forming the army of modern Belarus, to prepare it for the liberation of Belarus from the Kremlin and Lukashenko.

You can support the website Charter97.org

MULTI-CURRENCY ACCOUNT FOR ASSISTANCE:

Bank's name: Bank Millennium S.A.
Address: ul. Stanislawa Zaryna, 2A, 02-593, Warszawa
IBAN: PL97116022020000000216711123
SWIFT: BIGBPLPW
Name of the account holder: Fundacja “KARTA ‘97”
Purpose/title of payment: Donation for statuary aims

You can contact us by the e-mail charter97@gmail.com