A group of Belarusian exiles is receiving training in Poland to prepare for a day when they return to Belarus to take on the government of President Alexander Lukashenko, The Times reported on Sunday.
The Times spoke with Belarusians who were training in a field behind a business park in Poznan, Poland. The training was organized by Bypol, a group of former officers from Belarusian security services that was formed after the 2020 presidential election in Belarus and the protests that followed.
The elections saw Lukashenko win another term, but the results were rejected by opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and her supporters, who say the vote was rigged. The US and the EU also rejected the results and increased sanctions on Belarus, pushing Lukashenko closer to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Tsikhanouskaya fled Belarus and is currently based in Lithuania. The exiled opposition has taken credit for attacks inside Belarus since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including a blast that hit a Russian spy plane, although Discord leaks show the US believes rogue agents of the Ukrainian SBU were responsible.
The training session for exiled Belarusians is the first of its kind in Poznan, but Aliaksandr Azarau, the leader of Bypol, said other groups have been training in Poland for months with recruits numbering in the hundreds. Last year, Azarau claimed that 200,000 people signed up to support Bypol’s “victory plan,” including 5,000 who are willing to conduct sabotage operations.
In comments to the Times, Tsikhanouskaya suggested the exiled Belarusians were waiting for their moment. “We’re in safe mode, like a computer, our main task is to protect people and keep them where they are,” she said.
The US has backed Tsikhanouskaya since she fled Belarus. Tsikhanouskaya visited Washington last year and said after meeting with US officials that she was ensured of the US’s “full support.”
Source: AntiWar.
