Natallia Radzina Addresses Belarusian Military: You Have Two Options

Why should one die for anyone else's interests?

Natallia Radzina, editor-in-chief of the Charter97.org, urged the Belarusian military not to carry out criminal orders. The journalist writes about it on Facebook:

- I was raised in a military family. I know what the oath, duty and order mean. Fortunately, my father during his long service in the Soviet and then Belarusian army was never involved in criminal wars.

Even in 1981, when the Solidarity Trade Union was suppressed in Poland, the Soviet army units stationed in Legnica. My father served there. Those units temporarily left the barracks and then returned without ever being used against the people.

This is why our family always had many friends among the Poles. There was an understanding that both Belarusian and Polish peoples had to stay in the same Soviet barracks, but would one day definitely break free and live in their sovereign states.

In 1986, my father was in Ukraine on an entirely different mission: he extinguished the reactor of the Chernobyl NPP from a helicopter. By some miracle, he survived, while many of his comrades-in-arms died because of radiation. I am proud of my father, of his endurance and courage.

And today I believe that most of Belarusian military men do not want to go to war to Ukraine. First of all, because there have always been strong brotherly ties between our peoples. A huge number of Belarusians have Ukrainian origins and relatives in Ukrainian towns and villages.

Many people do not understand the meaning of this war. After all, an idea has rooted in the minds of the majority of the Belarusians during the years of independence that we are not Russia. Why should one die for anyone else's interests?

Yes, it's hard not to comply with the order given by commanders, if you've been trained to be an executive cog in the system all your life. But now the Belarusian military faces probably the hardest choice in life. Who are they? Are they a mindless killing machine or human beings after all?

If the first one, when they cross the Ukrainian border, they become war criminals and will either be killed by the Ukrainian army or sooner or later face prosecution.

If they are still human beings, then today, in my opinion, they should do their best to avoid being sent to Ukraine, or, if for some reason it failed, to surrender immediately.

That's it! There are no other options. Either you're human or you're dead, literally and figuratively. For everyone: your family, your friends, your country.

I still have relatives in the Belarusian army. If they enter Ukraine, they do not exist for me anymore.

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