By Max Bearak
Fighters of the Belarusian “Kastus Kalinouski Battalion,” from left: Konstantin Suschik, Pavel Kulazhanka and Siarhei Bespalau in Kyiv on March 30.
Kyiv - For more than a decade, (click here) Pavel Kulazhanka has sought to overthrow the authoritarian regime of Alexander Lukashenko in his native Belarus.
First, it was simple street protests. Then, sabotaging train lines and bombing military outposts. Eventually, he had to flee — and landed in New York City, where he became a mixed martial arts fighter.
But he thinks the best shot yet at toppling Lukashenko — and Russian President Vladimir Putin, without whose support many in Belarus think Lukashenko would quickly fall — has come with the war in Ukraine.
He is one of hundreds of Belarusians who have joined the fight here, inspired by their neighbor’s battlefield successes and determined to carry that momentum back into Belarus to end Lukashenko’s 28-year rule.
Many of them have joined the “Kastus Kalinouski Battalion,” named after the leader of Belarus’s insurrection against Russia in the 1860s. It is made up of Belarusians taking advantage of Ukraine’s wartime decision to allow foreigners to serve in the ranks of its armed forces, though not as officers. A dozen recruits interviewed by The Washington Post described their sense of common cause between Ukraine and Belarus’s pro-democracy movements....
First, it was simple street protests. Then, sabotaging train lines and bombing military outposts. Eventually, he had to flee — and landed in New York City, where he became a mixed martial arts fighter.
But he thinks the best shot yet at toppling Lukashenko — and Russian President Vladimir Putin, without whose support many in Belarus think Lukashenko would quickly fall — has come with the war in Ukraine.
He is one of hundreds of Belarusians who have joined the fight here, inspired by their neighbor’s battlefield successes and determined to carry that momentum back into Belarus to end Lukashenko’s 28-year rule.
Many of them have joined the “Kastus Kalinouski Battalion,” named after the leader of Belarus’s insurrection against Russia in the 1860s. It is made up of Belarusians taking advantage of Ukraine’s wartime decision to allow foreigners to serve in the ranks of its armed forces, though not as officers. A dozen recruits interviewed by The Washington Post described their sense of common cause between Ukraine and Belarus’s pro-democracy movements....
