How Officers Took the Oath of Allegiance to the Belarusian People on the Day of Military Glory

The white-red-white flag is already in the genes; it is "unstoppable".

On this day, 8 September, 29 years ago, fifteen officers of the army, police and KGB took the oath of allegiance to the Belarusian people in Independence Square in Minsk. Today it sounds unbelievable, but it was the first oath of allegiance to the Belarusian people.

Soldiers had already taken the oath of allegiance to Belarus, whereas officers were still under oath to the Soviet Union.

The Belarusian Military Association decided to fix the situation; they sought the support of the Ministry of Defense and other bodies, but they were slow to respond, and then refused to do it at all.

The Oath Day had a reason. On September 8, 1514, the army of Grand Duchy of Lithuania under the leadership of Konstantin Ostrogski defeated the much superior army of Muscovy near Orsha. This date is unofficially considered the Day of Belarusian Military Glory.

It was Sunday, spectators and officers came from all over the country. Vasil Bykau, Mikalai Statkevich, and Zenon Pazniak stood at the Presidium near the Pedagogical University.

- It was a very festive day. Many people gathered in Independence Square. At that time, the Belarusian Military Association had authority in society. Volodya Borodach was reading the oath; we were repeating it and the whole square was following us. There were a lot of symbols and banners. This day remains in our memory", recalls Valery Kostko, one of the participants of those events, for Salidarnasts .

Valery Kostko was the only KGB officer who dared to take part in the oath to the Belarusian people. There were a few police officers, but the majority were military officers.

Kostko says that all participants of those events were dismissed from the bodies within a year:

- The superiors were still Soviet at the time. Minister of Defence Pavel Kozlovsky was increasingly diligent, now a democrat. Back then, he specifically raised the issue of Borodach's dismissal.

The year 1992 was still a national upheaval, but then there was a rollback. Revanchist forces began to take over. I was dismissed in August 1993. I wrote that I was resigning for political reasons; national staff was being expelled from the KGB. There was no political will to reform the structure.

Edward Shirkovsky, who headed the KGB at the time, did not speak to me. I spoke to his deputy Valery Kez, who was in charge of military counterintelligence. He frankly told me that the tide was turning: either I would be compromised and thrown out, or I would leave, slamming the door. I chose the second option.

Valery Kostko still considers the date of 8 September to be important for him today. He says after the work hours he may raise 50 grams for "military glory".

- It is certainly a memorable day for me, I am a military man. The year 1514 is the great victory of Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrogsky over the superior army of his rival. There have been more than 500 wars between the GDL and the Duchy of Moscow, but the Battle of Orsha is one of the brightest pages. Many military academies around the world study this battle, but not in Belarus and Russia.

In 2021, Aliaksandr Lukashenka deprived Valery Kostko of the rank of lieutenant colonel, although he did not participate in the presidential campaign in any way. Kostko says his life does not depend on Lukashenka's decrees.

The Salidarnasts interlocutor remains an optimist and now believes in a democracy in the country:

- Today the whole of Belarus answers no to the question of whether you want to live the way you used to. But the question of how do you see your future life will have different answers. Today, it does not matter whether the regime is gone or not (and it will be); what matters is what will happen next. What do we want to build next?

Is there any chance that such an oath under the white-red-white flags will once again be held in the central squares of Belarusian cities?

- I do not doubt that the white-red-white flag will be the state flag again. It is in the genes; it is "unstoppable".

The former head of the Belarusian Military Association, Mikalai Statkevich, will again celebrate this year's Military Glory Day in prison. The politician's wife Maryna Adamovich says that Mikalai never forgets to congratulate his comrades-in-arms even being in prison. Statkevich considers September 8th as one of the most important days in the history of Belarus.

On this very day, Statkevich's trial is taking place in the Homel detention facility. In August, Statkevich had a birthday. He received over 120 letters of congratulations very late.

- You know, it's a very moving moment. He should answer everybody because people need support. That is, Mikalai tries to support people even from prison," Maryna Adamovich tells Salidarnasts.

The political prisoner has only Sovetskaya Belorussia as the source of information but even with it, he can analyze the situation:

- Mikalai now writes that the authorities are eating up their resources. The fact that they are staking on the power scenario proves they are losing the rest. Of course, he does not say "hurray, we have won", but he understands that the authorities are already doomed.

Maryna Adamovich believes that Statkevich will congratulate the Belarusians on the Day of Military Glory in his next letters if the censorship permits it.