Lukashenko's Experiment With Negligent Farmers: What Was It?
- Kirill Ivanov, “Solidarity”
- 6.10.2026, 9:56
Khrenin didn't bother to explain.
The recruitment of conscripts “from among agricultural enterprise specialists” has concluded. The Ministry of Defense has summarized the results: over the course of two months, more than 170 farmers underwent an intensive combat training course at the 103rd Vitebsk Separate Guards Airborne Brigade.
The participants passed practical exams in marksmanship, tactics, engineering, and medical training. They also “carried out tasks to secure the southern frontiers, including fortifying the terrain and conducting patrols.”
Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin, after presenting the training camp participants with commemorative watches, heaped praise on both the farmers and the country’s leader.
According to him, “For many conscripts, everyday life in the army has become not just a phase in their lives, but a true school of responsibility, discipline, and hard work.”
Let me get to the point—we have very good people. They are hardworking and devoted to their homeland. I believe that the training camps have achieved their goal. And, if necessary, we are ready to further develop this practice.
Lukashenko’s decision to send “negligent farmers” to military training camps was described by the minister as “unconventional.” And, in his view, it achieved its goal, even though there was “a lot of misinterpretation” at the very beginning:
“But this experiment proved only one thing: when our ‘president’ makes a decision, he draws on his vast experience, wisdom, and ability to foresee the outcome. That’s exactly how it turned out. The conscripts spent just a couple of weeks at the training camp, and we could already say with confidence that this unconventional decision had achieved its goal.”
The secret to success, Khrenin believes, is simply finding the right approach to people: “With some, we had to have a frank, honest conversation. For others, their comrades served as role models. And some, during these training sessions, discovered capabilities within themselves that they hadn’t even suspected existed.”
The training sessions have ended, but questions remain. The minister never explained what Lukashenko’s “unconventional” decision was based on.
The Ministry of Defense can call up those subject to military service for training exercises, but to this day there has been—and still is—no law in Belarus that allows for such selective conscription: drafting employees from a specific industry who have committed disciplinary offenses into the army for months at a time.
The minister’s statement that the army has always been a source of discipline does not constitute a legal basis for sending a tractor driver, field worker, or agronomist—by decision of a local executive committee—to learn how to fire a grenade launcher and patrol the border.
For workers who violate labor discipline, there is the Labor Code. Such an employee can be deprived of a bonus, demoted, or ultimately fired. But sending them to the army to take exams in firearms, tactics, engineering, and medical training is truly an unconventional decision, to put it mildly.
The military training for farmers has ended, but the main question remains: what was that all about? Two explanations come to mind. The first is a spur-of-the-moment decision by a leader frustrated with the situation in the agricultural sector, which officials and the military, as usual, rushed to carry out, while trying not to leave farms without workers in the middle of the harvest.
Incidentally, regarding Khrenin’s claims about Lukashenko’s wisdom and his ability to foresee the outcome. Let’s recall the ruler’s surprise a couple of weeks after those very farmers appeared in the army: he thought there were thousands of them, but it turned out there were only hundreds. He considered them drunkards and slackers, while the minister asked that they be awarded.
No matter how much the organizers of this “successful experiment” try to convince us that the army wasn’t used as a form of punishment in this case, this photo speaks for itself: the men are dressed as if they were prisoners of war or convicts in a penal colony
Why were those who had committed offenses sent to the army? For years now, Belarus has been in a state of endless military drills, inspections, and exercises. Against this backdrop, sending people to military training camps appears to the authorities not only more humane than dismissal or something worse, but also entirely natural.
The lack of clear legal justification for this experiment is also entirely in keeping with the spirit of the times—since September 2020, the country has been operating under the principle that “sometimes the law doesn’t matter.”
However, this point forms the basis of the second version. This idea was previously voiced by analyst Sergey Chaly. This whole story may well turn out to be nothing more than a trial run for accelerated conscription of those subject to military service, bypassing existing legal norms. He was a tractor driver—now he’s a tank driver.
How did Khrenin put it? If necessary, we’re ready to take this practice even further.
Kirill Ivanov, “Solidarnast”