The heyday of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is a good example of cooperation between our countries in the past. The powerful confederation was united by common values, political and security goals. It pursued a sovereign policy both inside and outside the state. But due to the inability to hear each other in a timely manner, to resolve the growth crisis, our paths diverged and everyone was eventually brought under the control of the enemy.
For Belarusians, the consequences were the longest lasting. To this day, after a century of occupation of the territory of Belarus, we cannot pursue an independent policy on our land, we cannot freely cooperate with our neighbors. From time to time, we have raised uprisings “for our freedom and yours,” but then long-lasting repressions and the destruction of everything national in Belarus followed. Cooperation between our countries was fading away again.
Today it is obvious to everyone what is happening in our region when Belarus falls out of the chain. Cultural, social, and economic ties are being severed, and Belarus’ neighbors face a real danger in the form of a “Belarusian balcony,” through which the Russian genocidal machine can easily threaten Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.
Who cares about quarreling with us
It is in Russia’s interest to amplify and hyperbolize any contradictions between our nations. Who called themselves first, what alliances they made against whom, what territories they claimed, whom they did not support in what wars… Russian propagandists will successfully seek out and fuel even minor historical events of millennial relations to push our countries away from the only form of not only survival but also prosperity. I’m talking about the confederation of our free national countries, the Intermarium.
Now we must realize that the game of playing on the contradictions of the past, to the formation of which Russia was often directly involved, continues. It’s like a crazy neighbor in a communal apartment who set out to quarrel and destroy everyone in order to take possession of the entire apartment. This example is all the more apt because this form of communal existence can only suit Russia, as the successor to the USSR. Free nation-states respect the sovereignty of their neighbors.
We remember who benefits from quarreling with us. We remember why Russia is doing this. And we are correcting the consequences of the fact that it has already managed to push us apart. We are fighting for Ukraine, because today the future of our countries is being decided in Ukraine. Russia will not stop – it must be stopped. It has already tasted blood in this century, and we will either destroy its statehood or lose ours again for several generations. Generations in which the best representatives of our nations will be repressed, as it has happened many times before.
Victory or further struggle
That is why we, Belarusians, are fighting for the freedom of Ukraine today as part of the Belarusian Volunteer Corps. In the ranks of our unit, there are Ukrainians who, like Taras Bulba-Borovets’ units during the Second World War, are destroying the occupiers. There were Poles who used to help us after the Bolsheviks seized the Belarusian People’s Republic, and now we feel their helping hand. Lithuanians are fighting side by side with us, just as the Forest Brothers recently resisted the socialist camp after the war. We win together and die together.
One of the heaviest losses of the BCT was the night when our reconnaissance group led by a Latvian from Latgale was killed. Vitalis Smirnovs was a professional scout, one of the most qualified soldiers I have met at the front. Denis Krihul, an Estonian, also a professional, one of the best machine gunners in the Estonian Army, died with him that night. David Lee Cote, an American, a legend of this war among the legionnaires, a professional in large-caliber weapons. And a Belarusian – about whom, unfortunately, we still cannot say anything for the safety of his family.
We are facing daily issues of survival and improving our training. Those of us who survive this war will see victory or continue the war for our freedom and yours in the occupation. We will carry our experience to gain freedom. We will carry our memory to preserve the freedom we have gained.
“In the ranks of free brothers and in captivity, in Aichin and in exile, in the bay and in the pit! Let your hands not clutch for weapons, for the flesh of your sons will not cease to clutch for your sons!” – from the oath of a Belarusian soldier.
Author: Radzivon Batulin – Commander of the Belarusian Volunteer Corps under the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine
Source: Kurier Wileński nr 5(13)
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