Loyalty To Lukashenka, That ‘Belarusians Are Russians,’ And How To Assemble A Machine Gun

In August 2020, Belarus teetered on the point of revolution as large, nationwide opposition protests rose as much as problem strongman chief Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Belarusians refused to just accept the official results of an election that hundreds of thousands consider was stolen.

1000’s had been detained, and lots of reported torture or abuse by the hands of the authorities. A number of individuals died through the crackdown

In an obvious bid to go off one other such situation sooner or later and switch Belarusian youngsters into “patriots,” the authorities have begun to take “military-patriotic” training significantly. Summer season camps are organized below the supervision of the safety forces. Because the starting of the tutorial yr, virtually 20 “military-patriotic” golf equipment have been created for schoolchildren, and the place of a particular “military-patriotic” educator has been launched in colleges.

“Any dictatorial regime plans to exist without end. In any case, it seeks to ensure its standing for many years to return,” says Valer Karbalevich, a political commentator for RFE/RL’s Belarus Service. “That’s the reason the authorities pay such consideration to the training of the youthful era.”

Karpyankou’s Golf equipment

Such “military-patriotic” golf equipment existed earlier than, however after the protests in 2020, the authorities determined to give attention to the training of younger Belarusians much more totally. In Could, Lukashenka signed a regulation on the event of those golf equipment and their financing from the funds.

The regulation states that the golf equipment had been created by the choice of Deputy Inside Minister Mikalay Karpyankou. This is identical Karpyankou who grew to become widely known after he broke the glass door of a Minsk cafe with a baton on September 6, 2020, in an effort to detain protesters from a close-by opposition rally.

Later, Karpyankou publicly called the opposition overseas “mad canine who deserve just one factor — dying.”

Golf equipment for youngsters and younger individuals in Karpyankou’s plan are created on the premise of navy models, the Inside Ministry, the Protection Ministry, and the Border Committee, and “protect the perfect expertise of military-patriotic training from the time of the united statesS.R.” The authorities boast that there are such a lot of individuals who need to be a part of the golf equipment that oldsters even file complaints that their youngsters cannot get in. Nevertheless, within the spring, the state information company BelTA information company reported that solely about 1,000 youngsters had joined military-patriotic golf equipment.

‘You Reap What You Sow’

Their creators declare that the aim of the golf equipment is to instill constructive pondering, an thought of citizenship, a way of patriotism, loyalty to the motherland, and a readiness to carry out duties in protection of the motherland in youngsters and younger individuals.

One other objective can be usually talked about: to organize future troopers.

In April, representatives of the Inside and Protection ministries held a press convention to elaborate on how the golf equipment labored. The deputy commander of the ideology unit of the Inside Ministry, Lieutenant Colonel Alyaksandr Brazhytski, voiced the objective at the moment:

“Inculcate love for the flag, for the anthem. You reap what you sow. We now have the perfect youth. Clear, shiny; that is our future. They usually take in every thing a lot, and say that they do not need something…. We adults do not need to cope with them. Like, the road will convey them up. Sure, the road will increase them. We bear in mind the yr 2020, and they’re going to go in a totally totally different path, in contrast to us.”

Former Training Minister Ihar Karpenka, who actively supported the creation of those golf equipment in 2021, stated they assist to “detach” younger individuals from devices and defend them from damaging influences.

Coaching Younger Troopers

Army-patriotic golf equipment function on the premise of navy models. For instance, navy unit 3214 (the identical one whose troopers took an energetic function in violence towards peaceable protesters) operates the Lynx Membership, which is attended by greater than 100 youngsters.

One other instance is the Granite Membership, which is held on the bottom of navy unit 5448. There, youngsters have interaction in gymnastics and hand-to-hand fight — pre-conscription coaching.

Youngsters are taught to make use of weapons. They’re taken to scrub up the “Stalin Line” –fortifications alongside the western border of the Soviet Union constructed within the Nineteen Twenties. They have a good time Victory Day on Could 9 and maintain conferences with Orthodox monks.

Yearly, on the eve of the Day of Particular Intelligence, the fifth Separate Particular Objective Brigade holds the Younger Particular Forces competitors. Youngsters are launched to varied sorts of firearms and are additionally allowed to follow capturing with an air rifle.

Summers At A Army Base

This strategy to training can be utilized at youngsters’s sports activities and patriotic camps. In 2021, there have been 46 such camps and 60 this yr. Youngsters may go to the navy models for hours, and even keep in a single day.

In 2021, 2,000 youngsters visited navy bases. For instance, college students from Vitebsk visited the 103rd Vitebsk Separate Guards Airborne Brigade in the summertime. Virtually 300 schoolchildren attended lessons on the airborne advanced, familiarized themselves with the primary fashions of the brigade’s small arms, the historical past of the airborne unit, fired a machine gun on an digital simulator, and watched a live performance by a navy band and a movie in regards to the fight path of a navy unit.

Youngsters are additionally taken on varied excursions. In July, college students of the Big military-patriotic membership, together with representatives of the Patriots of Belarus group, visited the thirty eighth Brest Separate Guards Assault Brigade.

In simply two weeks in June, the unit was supposedly visited by greater than 10,000 youngsters.

At such contests, schoolchildren compete in navy coaching: disassembling and assembling a machine gun, packing a duffel bag and tools, unloading {a magazine}, throwing a coaching grenade, offering first help, and marksmanship.

Throughout summer season camps, navy models set up exhibitions of navy tools for youngsters. One in every of them befell on the sixth Separate Guards Mechanized Brigade, the place an exhibition of weapons and navy tools was organized within the metropolis of Zhabinka.

Army Academics At Faculty

“Right patriotism” should now be addressed extra significantly in colleges, as nicely. Final yr, the place of head of military-patriotic training was launched. There isn’t any single strategy within the work of such lecturers but; they solely lately began to organize a guide. Whereas there isn’t a textbook, the Protection Ministry recommends utilizing supporting supplies on its web site.

The primary lesson is: “Falsification of historic reminiscence: to whom and why is neo-fascism is useful.” It was ready by the previous press secretary of the ideology division of the Protection Ministry, Uladzimer Makarau. He’s identified for calling opponents of navy parades “descendants of Wilhelm Kube” (a Nazi commander through the wartime occupation of Minsk), opponents of the federal government members of a “liberoid sect,” and Lukashenka a “determine of the brand new century.”

The lesson consists of 24 slides and begins with Soviet chief Josef Stalin’s phrases in 1943 in regards to the dissolution of the Communist Worldwide. The presentation additionally consists of the scandalous portray by Mikhail Savitski — Summer season Theater — that exhibits victims of the Holocaust and a prisoner with a yellow star on his gown taking our bodies to the crematorium.

Within the Soviet period, the painter was accused of anti-Semitism for displaying the Jews as accomplices to the crimes of the Nazis.

The Protection Ministry additionally recommends displaying photos of slain infants, alleged to be victims of the U.S. bombing of Yugoslavia, in lessons.

There’s a slide on which it’s claimed that, throughout World Warfare II, Polish nationalists performed soccer with the heads of massacred Jews and a quote arguing that “the essence of a Belarusian is Russianness.”

Virtually all proposals for military-patriotic training are devoted to the historical past of World Warfare II. However there’s, for instance, a video message from Belarusian veterans who quote Lukashenka’s statements, chastise Europe — which they accuse of wanting to remove Belarusian land — and name on youngsters to be loyal to the nation’s management.

Efforts by the authorities to affect youngsters’s training do not finish there. There are virtually 1,500 museums at colleges in Belarus at this time, of which greater than 200 are military-historical. Within the 2022-23 tutorial yr, the authorities set a job for every normal secondary academic establishment to create a museum room and thematic expositions “devoted to the Yr of Historic Remembrance, the Genocide of the Belarusian Individuals through the Nice Patriotic Warfare.”

Army personnel themselves go to colleges, journeys that are described on the Telegram channel of the Protection Ministry. In September, troopers of the sixth Separate Guards Mechanized Brigade took half in a category lesson titled “I’m a citizen of the Republic of Belarus” at Secondary Faculty No. 1 in Malaryta. They gave a lecture and familiarized the scholars with navy uniforms and small arms.

On the suggestion of the Training Ministry, all lecturers have been requested this yr to actively set up contests on navy matters, learn books about World Warfare II, watch movies in regards to the struggle, go to memorable locations associated to the struggle, and maintain open classes devoted to the “genocide of the Belarusian individuals.”

“The tutorial system is below strict management,” says Valer Karbalevich, the political analyst. “Now it will not be attainable to enter a college and not using a attribute indicating loyalty to the present regime.

“The cult of militarism is without doubt one of the necessary components of youth training below dictatorships. That’s confirmed by the historical past of all such regimes. Due to this fact, it isn’t by likelihood that the positions of heads of ‘military-patriotic’ training had been launched in colleges final yr,” he says. “Just lately, Lukashenka instructed the inside minister, Ivan Kubrakou, to create lyceums for the coaching of Inside Ministry officers all through the nation.

“Inciting hatred of ‘enemies,’ militarization of the consciousness, training primarily based on Soviet mythology — all these are clear indicators of the formation of a totalitarian regime in Belarus.”