Andrei Sannikov For Gazeta Wyborcza: War Always Starts Yesterday

The only way to stop the war and prevent its recurrence is to get rid of the dictatorial regimes that gave rise to it.

“Gazeta Wyborcza”, one of the leading media in Poland, published an article by the leader of the European Belarus civil campaign Andrei Sannikov. Here is the full text of the article:

“When people talk about Russia's predatory war against Ukraine, they usually recall the unlearned lessons of previous cases of Russia's armed expansion: Georgia-2008 and Ukraine-2014. However, there are many more such lessons, as well as factors that ensured an unprecedented bloody war in Europe, the war of Russia against Ukraine.

One of these factors is Belarus, namely the dictatorship of Lukashenka, which in many ways served as a model for the Putin regime, and in many ways made it possible to create conditions for Russian aggression.

Geopolitical importance of Belarus

Belarus holds an extremely important place in Europe in many respects. Its geostrategic significance is due to two geographical areas adjacent to Belarus in the east and west. These are the Smolensk Gate and the Suwalki Corridor.

The Smolensk Gate, the area between the Western Dvina and the Dnieper, is one of the main strategic corridors important for cross-border trade between East and West, and it is important not only for Russia, but also for the world's second economy, China.

At the same time, the Belarusian Smolensk Gate is the path by which the Russian Empire has repeatedly invaded Europe, and by which today the Russian Federation has invaded Ukraine, with the goal of capturing Kyiv.

It is known from history that when Russia began its invasion of Europe through the Smolensk Gate, it reached the Vistula and beyond: the Elbe and the Danube.

The second geostrategic region, the Suwalki Corridor, gained particular importance after the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. The corridor is vital for the security of the Baltic region, as it separates Russia's accomplice Lukashenka's Belarus and the Russian exclave Kaliningrad. This corridor is the only road and rail link between Poland and Central Europe and the Baltic countries. In the event of an invasion, the corridor would cut off three countries from the mainland of Europe. No wonder some experts call the Suwalki corridor “NATO's Achilles' heel”.

During periods of tension between Russia and the West, Belarus becomes a key geopolitical factor. Its policy determines whether the situation will escalate (if Belarus is on the side of Russia), or a détente is possible (if Belarus becomes democratic and draws closer to Europe).

Russian invasion and Lukashenka

Russia was preparing for a large-scale invasion of Ukraine right in the eyes of the entire world. Over the past 15 years, Russia has constantly increased the number and incidence of military maneuvers along its entire perimeter. The Russian armed forces took part in wars on the territory of other states, on the side of the dictator Assad in Syria, on the side of the government in the civil war in the Central African Republic (CAR), against Georgia, which resulted in the emergence of two self-proclaimed territories — Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In addition, formally banned Russian private military companies participated in hostilities outside Russia, for instance, the Wagner PMC in the Middle East and Africa.

Lukashenka's Belarus played a special part in Russia's military preparations. Russia has been conducting large-scale military exercises on its territory since 2009. It was during these exercises, as it became known to the media, that the invasion of the Baltic States and the nuclear attack on Warsaw were practiced.

The following similar maneuvers, Zapad-2013, according to Ukrainian experts, allowed Russia to prepare for the annexation of the Crimea and the occupation of the Donbas in 2014

The Zapad-2017 exercises, which were originally characterized as a fight against individual “terrorists” and “saboteurs”, turned into a practice of active military operations to suppress protests, which demonstrated that military methods would be used to subdue popular resistance in case of social unrest in Belarus or Russia.

And finally, during the Zapad-21 exercises, direct preparations were made for a new large-scale aggression against Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, using the territory of Belarus and with the full support of the Lukashenka regime.

In 2015, Putin played out a scenario of pseudo-negotiations in Belarus, obviously losing for Ukraine, but allowing Lukashenka to pose as an intermediary in the “Minsk process” and achieve the lifting of sanctions from his regime, although the conditions under which they had been introduced were not met.

Taking advantage of this indulgence, Lukashenka turned Belarus into a major smuggling hub, which allowed Russia and Europe to avoid mutual sanctions, and Lukashenka to cash in on smuggling.

For the Kremlin, Lukashenka’s Belarus was still important as a ground for testing the freedom strangling technologies.

To start an aggressive unjust war, it is extremely important for the dictators to first make sure that society is under control, and that the repressive machine is well-oiled and ready to brutally crush any disobedience.

Lukashenka's methods of suppressing human rights, civil and political freedoms in Belarus were fully applied to revive the totalitarian system in Russia.

Another “usefulness” of the Lukashenka regime for the Russian aggression was that the Kremlin was very closely monitoring the reaction of the West to the psychopathic antics of the dictator. He got away with not only the use of force against civilians, but also political assassinations, any election fraud, torture in prisons, and a huge number of political prisoners.

The key moment in the Kremlin’s preparation for war in Ukraine was the forceful suppression of large-scale protests in Belarus after the “presidential elections” in August 2020. Russia needed a fully controlled Belarusian bridgehead to start the war, and such a bridgehead was guaranteed due to unprecedented repressions against civilians by the Lukashenka regime.

The forceful hold on power in Belarus by the Lukashenka regime provided Putin with the necessary conditions — both political and military — for an attack on Ukraine.

Work on mistakes

Unleashing a bloody war in Europe by Russia was the result not only of the aggressive policy of the Kremlin, but also of a number of mistakes made by the West, which for a long time underestimated the danger of the processes taking place in the countries that formed on the site of the former USSR.

Victory today is needed both in the war with Russia, and over the entire organized criminal group of dictatorships led by Putin, rooted in the territory of the former USSR.

For a strategy of victory, an accurate and comprehensive analysis of the situation is required, which will help determine the principles of relations with the dictatorships that unleashed this war, the regimes of Putin and Lukashenka.

Until now, the West has been reacting to events based on an incorrect assessment of the processes in the region, delaying the analysis of these processes, thereby giving the initiative to the aggressor.

So it was with the beginning of the war, when the West, on the one hand, had accurate information about the invasion, and on the other hand, wrote off Ukraine and assumed that Russia would take Kyiv and subjugate Ukraine within a few weeks.

A similar logical miscalculation was made in relation to Belarus. The nature of the Lukashenka regime has long been well known in the West, but for some reason there was a stubborn unwillingness to see it as a threat to international security. Meanwhile, the regime has become a full-fledged participant in the invasion of Ukraine, and still allows Putin to undividedly dispose of the territory of Belarus in order to continue and escalate military operations against Ukraine.

After the first weeks of the war, when Ukraine survived at the cost of huge sacrifices, but demanded serious support, primarily the supply of weapons, the West continued to rely on negotiations, communicated with Putin, and pushed the Ukrainians towards negotiations.

Ukraine disrupted all the plans of Russia and all the assumptions of the West.

In other words, the West was preparing for the last war all the time, and did not keep the beat of the real war.

Today Ukrainians have synchronized their successes at the front and their political goals. We are no longer talking about returning to the situation before February 24, 2022, Ukraine insists on restoring its sovereignty throughout the territory, including the Crimea and all the occupied areas.

The successes of the Ukrainian army, the truly popular resistance to the aggressor, also influenced the position of the West. Today, the West is getting closer to supporting the complete liberation of the territory of Ukraine and the set goal — the complete defeat of Russia in the war it unleashed.

The military officials of NATO and other Western countries are quite actively involved in providing Ukraine with everything necessary for defense. The seriousness of their intentions is evidenced at least by the creation and successful work of a group for coordinating military assistance to Kyiv in the Ramstein format, which already includes about 50 countries.

The military aspect of the war in Ukraine is key, and ensuring the victory of Ukraine, restoring its territorial integrity is a task of paramount importance, but these goals are being achieved not only by military methods.

Political “Ramstein”

Recently, two major European politicians made candid statements, admitting the West's mistakes in relations with Russia. The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, admitted that “it was necessary to listen to those who know Putin — Anna Politkovskaya ... our friends in Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and the opposition in Belarus, listen to the voices within our union — in Poland, the Baltic countries and throughout Central and Eastern Europe. They have been saying for years that Putin will not stop.”

The long-liver of German politics, Wolfgang Schäuble (50 years in the Bundestag), was even more straightforward: “We knew everything, but refused to accept it.” He also acknowledged that former Polish President Lech Kaczynski was right when he said in 2008 after the Russian attack on Georgia: “Now Georgia, then Ukraine, then Moldova, and the next ones are the Baltic states and Poland.”

This statement is extremely important, because it was made by one of the key politicians in Germany, who was interior minister during the 2008 attack on Georgia, and was finance minister at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Recognition of mistakes is necessary to make the right decisions.

Russia's war of aggression in Europe has entered an extremely dangerous phase. Russia doesn't seem to be looking forward to any notable military victory over Ukraine anytime soon, so Putin has upped the stakes significantly by declaring “partial mobilization” in Russia.

This deceitful name hides a large-scale conscription into the army, which can reach several million new recruits in quantity.

In addition, Putin and his ministers are increasingly talking not about the possibility, but about the need to use nuclear weapons. The recent mock “referendums” in the occupied regions of Ukraine for joining Russia were not harmless performances at all. Declaring them Russian territory greatly increases the likelihood that Putin will use nuclear weapons to defend these territories.

In announcing “mobilization” Putin, and then his Defense Minister Shoigu, designated the “collective West” as the main enemy and the main reason for the escalation.

By blackmailing the West with nuclear weapons and other types of WMD (weapons of mass destruction), resorting to the Stalinist-Zhukovian tactics of throwing corpses at the enemy, Putin hopes to achieve the capitulation of the West and complete control over Ukraine.

In this situation, decisive actions by the West are needed to unconditionally support Ukraine, primarily with the weapons it needs.

At the political level, measures are needed that are comparable to the actions in the military sphere of the Western countries that created Rammstein. Not only sanctions, although this is the most effective tool for depriving the aggressors of resources, but also the creation of an international tribunal for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the exclusion of criminals from international organizations, the boycott of any participation of criminals in international cultural and sports events.

These measures must certainly include the Lukashenka regime, not only for complicity in the aggression, but also for the crimes against humanity.

With the start of a new Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lukashenka’s crimes in Belarus faded into the background, although repressions in Belarus after the events of 2020 have not stopped for a day.

In 2020, the entire Belarusian people rose up against the tyrant. Lukashenka, in fear, gave the order to act against peaceful demonstrators with brutal methods. Massive beatings, torture and even killings of protesters began, but the West was in no hurry to impose sanctions to stop the regime's madness. Tough and prompt sanctions would help stop the bloodshed, and serve as a lesson to Putin. There would be no invasion of Ukraine if the West supported the people of Belarus in 2020.

We must not allow Europe to start flirting with Lukashenka again, while he keeps several thousand political prisoners in prisons, subjecting them to torture and abuse.

It is possible to stop the war and prevent its recurrence only by getting rid of the dictatorial regimes that gave rise to it, the regimes of Putin and Lukashenka.

This is well understood by the warriors of the Belarusian Kastus Kalinouski regiment, who are fighting for the freedom of Ukraine and Belarus. They understand that Lukashenka's dictatorship serves as a conduit for Russian aggression in Europe, that the “Belarusian balcony” under a dictatorship will always threaten Europe and fuel the expansionist appetites of the Kremlin.

The war in Europe is in full swing. The Kremlin gangs have passed the Smolensk Gate and are ready to go to Suwalki. And then — new goals: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, then — everywhere.

The Western world today has every opportunity to help Ukraine win, to help Belarus get rid of the dictatorship.

We must not allow the price of freedom to amount to the new victims of war and dictatorship.