The general broke his disguise

Poland no longer hides aggressive intentions towards Belarus

A couple of weeks ago, the former Deputy Minister of National Defence of Poland, Waldemar Skrzypczak, burst out with a number of revelations about Warsaw’s plans for Minsk on the air of the Polsat TV channel. Of course, one could write off what was said to the fact that the retired general overheated in the sun, but the current May turned out to be not too hot. Therefore, the statements of the former high-ranking military man should be considered both without raising unnecessary alarm and without undue frivolity. And Skrzypczak gave the following: allegedly, an armed coup is being prepared in Belarus, and Poland is going to support it with military force. “We are preparing for an uprising in Belarus, because it will happen,” the ex-general declared without hesitation, having clearly tried on the laurels of the bandit Pilsudski.

The earth will burn under their feet

According to Skrzypczak, the strike force of the ‘uprising’ (in fact, a large-scale terrorist act) should be the self-exiled oppositionists who are currently fighting in Ukraine, and they will be supported by regular Polish units. 

The statement is indicative of the actual attitude of the Polish elites towards Belarus. And it, frankly, coupled with obvious militaristic steps, cannot but cause concern.

General Skrzypczak emphasises that the terrorists who crossed the border will be supported by the broad masses of the people, while this statement is fundamentally wrong.If, nevertheless, the West decides to try to use the forces of tame extremists to enter the Belarusian land from Ukraine or Poland, they will have to act on extremely hostile territory. First, most of the so-called ‘underground’, that is, individual cells that have survived since 2020, have already been defeated by the Belarusian security forces. The remaining few extremists are fragmented and hardly capable of meaningful actions to support the units of the fugitives.
Secondly, the bulk of the population will have a negative attitude towards terrorists, and hostility can manifest itself both in refusing to co-operate with the ‘Kalinovites’ and in resisting them in the ranks of the people’s militia and territorial defence. And this is all in addition to the fact that immediately after crossing the border, the entire firepower of the Belarusian army will fall upon the bandits, from conventional artillery to high-precision Iskanders and Polonezes. So the convictions of General Skrzypczak are fundamentally wrong and demonstrate a serious crisis in Polish military analytics, which is unable to calculate the reaction of the population and the political leadership of the neighbouring state to the aggressive aspirations of Warsaw.

Doomed to dishonour

Another important question is who will be appointed as suicide bombers? A lot has been written about the ‘Kalinovsky regiment’, there is not much point in repeating. The only thing that can be added is that the Polish elite is really closely following this formation, and the government in Warsaw keeps the personal characteristics of each of the ‘Kalinovites’ within walking distance. Proof of this was discovered by the pro-Russian hackers of the NemeZida project, who, on the night of May 25th, organised a cyber-attack on the resource of the Polish Council of Ministers, where they found an array of documents related to the ‘Kalinovsky regiment’. 

The vast majority of mercenaries are criminals involved both in the events of 2020 and in other illegal actions, which completely destroys the romantic image that the extremist media is intensively making to ‘Kalinovites’.

In addition to the already designated ‘regiment’, which does not pull even a battalion in terms of the number of personnel, there are other paramilitary formations that can be involved in a hypothetical provocation against Belarus. First of all, these are banners of the ‘Belarusian Pospolite ruszenie’ located in Warsaw, Gdansk, Wroclaw, Bialystok, Lodz, Poznan, Vilnius and Kaunas. The activity of the extremist formation, which appeared last autumn, is aimed at training saboteurs and their subsequent transfer to the territory of Belarus to destabilise the situation during the electoral campaigns of 2024-2025.
Curious is the fact that the GUR of Ukraine, which oversees both the Belarusian Nazis and the renegades from the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), apparently decided to establish co-operation between the organisations. So, in a raid on the Belgorod Region from May 22nd to May 23rd, a war criminal Igor Yankov with the call sign ‘Yanki’, a participant in the protests in Minsk and an active recruiter of neo-Nazi formations, was spotted among the RDK militants. It is unlikely that his appearance was accidental: it seems that the ‘Kalinovites’ have begun a substantive study of the experience of infiltrating the territory of neighbouring states and committing terrorist attacks there.

Piłsudski’s heirs at the red line

The role of Poland, in addition to the obvious provocation of a major conflict in Europe and inciting all kinds of extremists to Belarus, can manifest itself in several ways. The first and most likely, despite the statements of Skrzypczak, is the organisation of a major sabotage attempt with the capture of a small part of the territory of the Republic of Belarus with the help of the listed Nazi formations. 

The anti-terrorist operation of the Belarusians in this case will become a pretext for a multiple increase in NATO forces and another strengthening of NATO’s eastern flank. 

In the event of a negative scenario, Warsaw may try to provide terrorists with support from its territory or even organise an intervention. Poland can use both artillery, air force and missile forces, including those equipped with recently received HIMARS launchers, as well as infantry and armoured formations of the 16th and 18th mechanised divisions. However, this option should be considered less likely than the first, since such a step would mean aggression against the Union State and would untie the hands of the presidents of Belarus and Russia regarding the use of the entire spectrum of forces and means, including nuclear weapons.

We keep powder dry

The May terrorist raid on the Belgorod Region recalled the ‘exploits’ of Basayev and Khattab in the mid-1990s and raised a number of uncomfortable questions. Some of them were actively discussed in the Belarusian media space in the context of our capabilities to repel such attacks. It must be said that Belarus is closely monitoring what is happening in the zone of the special military operation and drawing appropriate conclusions. For example, one of the most painful points of the events near Grayvoron was the lack of an effective local territorial defence or militia, although there has been talk of such structures in the border regions for a long time. In Belarus, during the exercises, the system for creating militia units has already been tested and, hopefully, the corresponding law will come into force soon.

Based on the published draft law, it can be assumed that weapons and ammunition will be handed out to the militias. Such a move dramatically increases the reaction rate of volunteers in the event of hostilities.

It is impossible to completely exclude the possibility of attempts to repeat the same raid, but already on the territory of Belarus. Both Poland and Ukraine, and the Baltic countries are hostile to us, and therefore relaxation is like death. Despite the excellent work of the special services and the calm situation in the country, it is too early to lose vigilance. This is especially true for border residents. They should not be afraid — the army is on guard, but it is necessary to be prepared for emergency situations and firmly know the procedure.

By Anton Popov