"Belarusians Are Already Fighting Back Against The Russians."

• 23.03.2026, 17:56

Popular myths about Belarusians were dispelled at the presentation of the book "Natallia Radzina's Belarus" in Tallinn.

The presentation of the book of the famous American writer Yuri Felshtinsky "Natallia Radzina's Belarus" was presented in Tallinn on March 19. The event at the Workland Vabaduse center gathered a full hall.

The meeting was attended by Natallia Radzina, editor-in-chief of the website Charter97.org, coordinator of the civil campaign "European Belarus" Dzmitry Bandarenka, and was hosted by the famous writer and journalist Arkadiy Babchenko.

The presentation was attended by Estonian journalists, diplomats, public figures, representatives of the Belarusian, Ukrainian and Russian diasporas.

That is why at the very beginning of the conversation Natallia Radzina pointed out: Belarus has long been misunderstood even by its closest neighbors, the main goal of the book is to tell the real history of our country:

- There are a lot of myths about Belarus, little is known about Belarusians. Including, unfortunately, little is known in my favorite Estonia, where I like to visit. Thanks to this book, I hope the myths will be destroyed. What do Estonians know about Belarus? That it is a country ruled by dictator Lukashenko and influenced by Russia. On the one hand this is true, on the other hand Belarus is a European country whose people have been fighting for their freedom for decades. The purpose of this book is to show the struggle of Belarusians for their freedom.

"A hole from a bagel" in which the fate of Europe is decided

Arkadiy Babchenko drew attention to one of the chapters in the book, in which the leader of the civil campaign "European Belarus" Andrei Sannikov speaks about the key position of our country. Why is Belarus so important? The participants of the meeting returned to this question several times throughout the conversation. Dzmitry Bandarenka explained the importance of Belarus' position through history and geopolitics:

- The largest military operations of the 20th century passed through Belarus: the operation "Barbarossa", the main direction of the Nazi Germany's strike was through Belarus, the largest operation of the Soviet troops "Bagration" - also through our country. Even earlier Napoleon's attack on Moscow through the "Smolensk Gate", the interfluve of the Western Dvina and Dnieper. This is the shortest distance between the capitals of the largest European countries - Paris, Berlin, Warsaw and Moscow. Throughout the centuries, armies often moved through the territory of Belarus. Some advancing, others retreating, then returning, and always the Belarusians suffered.

A Ukrainian analyst, captain of the second rank Grigory Perepelytsya said that Belarus is "a hole from a bagel". There seems to be no potential as if it had 100 million inhabitants, no huge military, economic, human resource. However, the one who controls it can strike in all directions: to the south, to the north, to the west, and to the east. Unfortunately, Moscow has understood this very well for centuries, while our friends have understood it poorly.

The opposition politician is sure that a free and democratic Belarus could solve Europe's security problems:

- When Lukashenko first appeared, we said he was a threat. Putin learned from Lukashenko, not the other way around. Very many dictators took an example from the Belarusian. We told Westerners: listen, Belarus is a small country, but the majority of Belarusians are against dictatorship. Now one of Lukashenko's former sociologists, head of the sociological service at the Academy of Sciences Gennady Korshunov has published the data of closed polls, which were conducted before the so-called presidential election in Belarus. According to them, Lukashenko did not even win electorally in 2001, 2006, 2010 or 2020. This is a fact. Can you imagine, if somehow by joint efforts, while this dictatorship was weak, had not gained power, before it was subdued by even more aggressive dictatorship in the person of Putin's regime, this threat would have been eliminated. For this purpose, it was necessary to help the Belarusians a little with resources, to give a little information support. Russia would not have had the opportunity to fight against Ukraine today, the issue of, excuse me, "Narva People's Republic" would not have been raised today, there would have been no threat to the Suvalki corridor.

Arkady Babchenko asked how realistic it was to change the power in Belarus. The journalist recalled the popular reproach from the Ukrainians that the Belarusians did not take up arms, as on the Maidan in Kiev, but took off their shoes and stood on the benches. Natallia Radzina stood up for our compatriots and explained why one should not draw direct parallels between Kiev in 2014 and Minsk in 2020:

- What were the Belarusians supposed to do if we didn't have weapons? The difference between the situation in Belarus and Ukraine is that there were completely different regimes. If we are talking about the regimes of Kuchma and Yanukovych, they were rather authoritarian. In Belarus, there was a strict dictatorship. And there were never any paramilitary organizations, such as Right Sector, in Belarus. By 2020, of course, there were no organized power structures in opposition.

Another thing is that, of course, the strategy that was chosen by the so-called new leaders who emerged on the wave of the 2020 protests was an absolute failure. I always say that you don't make a revolution on the weekend. And the fact that Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and her entourage were asked to go out on the streets only on Sundays and go to work on Monday, and the fact that they refused to call for a strike, led to a defeat, allowed Lukashenko to suppress these protests. It was the main mistake, because it was possible to win with that number of people, if the Belarusians would not have left the streets, would have stood in the city center, near the government house, demanded negotiations with the authorities, would have gone to the Belarusian television, demanded airtime on the state channels. I am convinced that 300-400 thousand people, who came out in Minsk, could achieve a change of power.

Arkady Babchenko raised a question that has recently been of great concern to Estonians. Russian security services through social networks have begun to spread the idea of creating a "Narva People's Republic" - separation from Estonia of the city on the border with the Russian Federation, where 85% of the population is Russian. Can Putin annex Belarus and create a "Belarusian Federal District"? Will Lukashenko hinder the plans of the Kremlin dictator. Natallia Radzina believes that this is another popular misconception:

- Another myth that I would like to dispel is that Lukashenko is supposedly the guarantor of Belarus' sovereignty and somehow opposes Putin. This is absolutely not true. If Putin needs it, he will attack Kiev again from the territory of Belarus, as it happened on February 24, 2022, attack Lithuania, Latvia or commit suicide and attack Poland. Likewise, the same applies to the Belarusian army. Why is the Belarusian army not involved in the war against Ukraine? Because the Belarusians do not want to fight against the Ukrainians. Lukashenko understands perfectly well that if they are sent to Ukraine, they will either lay down their arms and surrender or go over to the side of the Ukrainians. This is the very idea Lukashenko brings to Putin. I myself am the daughter of a serviceman, my father has long been retired, but I can imagine what is happening to the Belarusian army. Lukashenko is an absolute puppet here.

Dzmitry Bandarenka told how he and his colleagues traveled to Kiev several years before Russia's full-scale invasion and explained to the Ukrainian authorities that if they did not help the Belarusians to oust Lukashenko, it would lead to an attack on Ukraine from the north:

- We warned the Ukrainians and asked for help. After all, for example, it is a matter of several instances to put radio stations on the border with Belarus to broadcast to the country. Take and talk about the experience of their reforms, how Ukraine is going to the European Union and NATO, and this will affect Belarus. At the same time Lukashenka's propaganda media were on Ukraine's cable packages. Agreements were signed that Ukrainian TV channels would be in cable packages in Belarus, but it didn't happen. We said that if you don't help us, you will lose hundreds of billions. They say to us: "Hryvnia?" I said, "No, we're talking billions of dollars here." Everyone laughed.

Now very few Belarusians want to fight against Ukraine. But propaganda can do anything with them. I was a Soviet soldier in my time, these are scary things. Maybe Lukashenko should be helped in this counter-hybrid fight against dictatorship today by allocating the cost of three Leopard tanks to support independent media, to support bloggers. Of course, we can buy a lot of drones and missiles and airplanes, but the question is: will we get 100 thousand zombie Belarusians who will go with weapons to the Baltic States? It can be done in three years. And if we communicate with them, we will have more opportunities, not only will there be no zombies, the Belarusians can also resist those Russians who want the territory of Belarus.

"Lukashenko is invited to the United States for a reason"

The presentation of the book "Natallia Radzina's Belarus" in Tallinn took place on the day when the special envoy of the US President John Cole visited Minsk and 250 political prisoners were released from Belarusian prisons. The editor-in-chief of Charter97.org responded to a question about the Americans' goals in contacts with the regime in Minsk:

- It seems to me that right now Putin and Lukashenko are dragging Trump into the process of some kind of negotiations that don't have much effect on anything. But in our case they are at least releasing some political prisoners. Russia is negotiating with the United States ostensibly about the war in Ukraine, while Trump is talking directly with Belarus about releasing political prisoners in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.

Here we face the bargaining that has always happened when Lukashenko seized political prisoners after every presidential election and then sold them in exchange for a relaxation of the sanctions regime or increased trade with Western countries. On the one hand, it seems to be a dead end, because we have seen this process many times. But now we are dealing with such a number of political prisoners, which has never been seen in the history of modern Belarus. Secondly, political prisoners have never spent so many years in prison - now many Belarusians are released after five or six years of imprisonment.

We see how prison has a terrible effect on people, they come out in a difficult psychological and physical state. Quite a large number of political prisoners (we cannot say the exact number, but we are talking about more than 10 cases) died in prison due to lack of medical care and torture. That's why we welcome the fact that now some people are coming out as a result of the U.S. negotiations with Lukashenko's regime, because there is nothing more important than human life.

On the other hand, the U.S. sanctions, which were imposed against Lukashenko, do not have much impact on the situation in Belarus. More important are the sanctions imposed by the European Union. Therefore, if as a result of these negotiations people will be released, we support it.

Dzmitry Bandarenka inserted a rejoinder and put forward an interesting version of why Trump is trying so hard to invite Lukashenko to the United States, and the dictator is stubborn:

- Trump's envoy Cole said: "We strongly invite the esteemed Alexander Lukashenko to visit Washington." And he didn't go. Lukashenko was personally invited to Trump's "Peace Council," but for some reason he declined. And now Cole is telling Lukashenko that "President Trump himself is personally reminding Mr. Lukashenko to come to Washington when there is a meeting of the Peace Council." I think Lukashenko flinched because the captured Maduro was also being negotiated with. I think he will not go to the U.S.

"There is a real tool to influence the Belarusians."

A lot of questions were heard from the audience about how to help Belarusians today and influence the situation inside the country. Natallia Radzina believes that the most effective tool is independent media. However, despite the European funding, the media are in a difficult situation, while the money goes to rather strange projects:

- Unfortunately, the same site "Charter" does not receive enough assistance from Western funds, including the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which recently rejected us with a very strange wording. We submitted the project together with our partners here - with the organization "Open Estonia".

We have a huge audience in Belarus. We are the most popular independent website, we are read by more than a million unique visitors inside the country, despite the blockage. We have about 30 million views per month. And in this situation we don't know what will happen in a month, whether we will be able to continue working or not, because the funding is extremely scarce.

At the same time, I see that Western money goes to some projects that don't work at all. Either they are media with a very low audience and effectiveness, or they are incomprehensible NGOs. I can't imagine how many "constitutions of Belarus" have been written in the last five years, how many reform packages ChatGPT has generated for some of the NGOs that received Western funding. We know that one Svetlana Tihanovska cost Lithuania two million euros, now she has moved to Poland. I read on Polish websites that they are going to spend three million euros a year on her. Do you realize how much media could work for that amount of money? The annual budget of "Charter'97" is much less than this amount.

Dmitry Bandarenka added that it was the independent media that took over the role that the Belarusian state refused to fulfill:

- There is not a single university in Belarus, where teaching would be conducted in the Belarusian language. There is not a single college, a single school, a single lyceum where teaching would be in the Belarusian language.

In Soviet times, it was the most Russified Soviet republic. There was a very short period of revival in the late 80s, and by 1995 it was over. Education of identity, promotion of history is done through independent mass media, and here the key role was played by "Charter". The fact is that in the 20th year, when new leaders appeared, they wore red-green rags, Lukashenko's symbols to pre-election rallies. For some reason they thought that the Belarusians wanted to walk under this "sunset over the swamp" and demand changes. But no, millions of Belarusians marched under our white-red-white flag, and this was not taught to them neither in school, nor in kindergarten, nor in universities, nor in language colleges. This was also taught to them by Charter 97, Natallia Radzina and those politicians who had the opportunity to speak there. And those who called to come out under the red-green flag are today called "leaders of Belarus", they are paid millions of dollars to drive with flashing lights, with security guards.

"Putin can attack from Belarus in two directions"

At the end of the presentation, an interesting discussion broke out about Putin's possible attack on the Baltic States. One of the participants asked whether the Kremlin will attack Lithuania from the territory of Belarus, trying to break through the Suvalki corridor to Kaliningrad, or will choose Estonia as a target for aggression.

Natallia Radzina believes that both scenarios can be launched simultaneously:

- From the territory of Belarus, the Suvalki corridor will be broken through and Lithuania may be invaded, and Latvia's Daugavpils is also under threat. Through the territory of Latvia, the Russians can also go to Estonia to squeeze you in a vise. It seems to me that this is a good time for Putin. Trump is busy with the war in Iran, to find another US president who would be so favorable to him - he will not be able to. So this is a convenient time for Putin. I believe that we should be wary, because anything is possible.

Dzmitry Bandarenka drew attention to the Kaliningrad factor, which affects the entire Baltic region:

- In his time, Hitler told the Poles: give me a passage to Danzig and a corridor to East Prussia, and today we hear from Putin about a corridor to Kaliningrad. I'm sure Russian generals and admirals are saying that after Finland joined NATO, Russia has been thrown back to the 16th century. They will demand to break this "neck" in which Russia is squeezed. Therefore, the main factors for the region are Belarus and Kaliningrad.

Arkady Babchenko expressed confidence that Putin will not go for such a scenario now:

- At least not now. The best thing we can do is to donate to the AFU. While the Ukrainians are grinding up the "orcs" in Donbass, Putin has no way to pull troops back from the front. As soon as the ceasefire is signed - the countdown to an attack on the Baltic states will begin.

Now Russia doesn't have the strength to wage a full-scale war against NATO and push through the Suvalka corridor, although I'm sure that if Putin decides to attack Lithuania, Poland won't get involved. Why would the Poles want that? However, they don't have the forces for a full-scale operation. The scenario of all these "Narva"-"Figar" republics, provocations, "shahid" terror to see NATO's reaction is much more likely. If NATO's reaction is strong - "okay, it didn't work out."

Talking about NATO's possible reaction, Natallia Radzina quoted former U.S. Army Europe Commander Ben Hodges as saying that "if Russia attacks NATO, Kaliningrad will be destroyed in the first hours".

"Belarusians are already fighting back against the Russians"

At the end of the meeting, Dzmitry Bandarenka and Natallia Radzina answered the question about Belarusians' resistance to Russian influence. The coordinator of "European Belarus" drew attention to unusual forms of protest:

- In Soviet times, I was also a victim of this struggle of the residents of Lithuania and Latvia. When they asked me in Russian how to go somewhere, I was often sent in the other direction, and then I walked around the city. It was such a form of resistance.

Now, thanks to social networks, when Russian tourists gather in Belarus, they are rebuffed. One Russian woman wrote that at the Minsk airport "there were no draniki, and the pancakes were unpalatable and expensive." Immediately, half of the Belarusians began to give her advice: girl, that's right, inform all the Russians that we don't just have tasty pancakes, we have shipped pancakes, so that they don't come here. And the other part said that we have the best pancakes, let her eat in Moscow, and then compare.

Natallia Radzina is sure that Belarus, having freed itself from Lukashenko's regime, will immediately start the process of joining the EU and NATO:

- The paradox is that despite the dictatorship that has ruled Belarus for so many years, the elites (if they can be called elites, I certainly do not consider them such) are against joining Russia. The desire to live in their own country is stronger. For them it is a matter of survival, because they understand very well that if Belarus joins Russia, they will be regional-level officials, they will be replaced by Russians very quickly, having been well robbed beforehand. After all, it's much more comfortable to live in their independent country.

I'm sure that as soon as Belarus becomes free and democratic, naturally, all these agreements that Lukashenko made with Russia will be canceled. We will go to the European Union and NATO.

At the end of the presentation everyone could buy the book "Belarus by Natallia Radzina" for a symbolic donation for the politically repressed, get an autograph and be photographed with the participants of the meeting.