Mercenaries of the Wagner army are apparently training Belarusian troops. Alexander Lukashenko wants to professionalize his military. But the training has its limits.
A little more than a month after the uprising of the Wagner troops in Russia, it is clear that the rebellion led by Yevgeny Prigozhin produced almost only losers. Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin is weakened, the Russian army is in turmoil, Prigozhin has gone into hiding.
But one person emerges as the winner: the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.
The long-term dictator in Minsk managed not only to help President Putin out of the crisis by – so the official story goes – stopping Prigozhin’s march on Moscow at the last minute. Lukashenko has also given himself several advantages. His unexpected mediating role in the Wagner uprising has strengthened him as a ruler in the region. He of all people, who was actually considered the Kremlin chief’s lackey.
In addition, Lukashenko has apparently negotiated a deal from which his army is benefiting: mercenaries from the Prigozhin troops who are willing and experienced in combat are apparently coming to Belarus in their thousands – and are training Belarusian soldiers there. A smart move, because the Belarusian army urgently needs it from a military-strategic point of view.
10,000 Wagner fighters in Belarus?
As of this week, the time has probably come: Wagner mercenaries have officially started combat training. How many men are in action is difficult to quantify. The adviser to the Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior, Anton Gerashshenko, estimates that there are 10,000 Wagner mercenaries in Belarus.
He relies on a source from the Wagner series, the numbers are not verifiable. According to this, 78,000 mercenaries are said to have gone through “the mission in Ukraine”, 22,000 alone are said to have been killed and others in captivity. 25,000 of them are “alive”, i.e. operational.
There is a simple reason why Lukashenko wants to professionalize his military with the help of a private army. “The Belarusian army is the least experienced army in Europe,” says András Rácz. Rácz is a researcher at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin and explains: “That’s because the Belarusian army has never fought in real combat. It has never been on foreign missions, except for a very small operation in Kazakhstan in 2022.”
For a few airborne soldiers, however, it was about a crisis management mission, not about direct combat in the territory. “The soldiers never learned to fight,” says Rácz.
Trauma of Belarusian society
The weakness of the army has historical reasons. When Soviet troops fought in Afghanistan, Belarus primarily provided technical know-how, says Rácz: logistical staff, pipeline operators, technicians. “At that time, the Soviet troops suffered extremely high losses – and disproportionately high losses. This became a trauma for Belarusian society: from then on Belarus should never fight abroad again.”
Not even after independence in 1991. It was in the constitution for many years. “The Belarusians don’t even send blue helmets to UN peacekeeping missions. They only sent a few staff officers,” says Rácz.
Videos | Video should show new Wagner training
Quelle: Glomex
Above all, Lukashenko promoted the secret service and the police
Belarus has been a dictatorship for decades, and Lukashenko has always acted like a typical dictator: above all, he strengthened the internal armed forces and the secret service. “The Interior Ministry troops, the police and the KGB were the pillars of his power. The Belarusian army remained underfinanced,” said Rácz. The military became a sham army.
But what the soldiers can now learn from the Wagner mercenaries is limited. Wagner units generally fought separately from the Russian military in Ukraine. Because they were not fighting as troops on behalf of the Russian Federation, they were not bound by any laws. Recently, Kremlin boss Putin even said that Wagner does not legally exist. Wagner fighters were notable for their particular brutality, and many of them are accused of war crimes.
