What “emergency measures” is Lukashenka preparing for?

In March, around the topic of a possible entry of Belarus into the war, the excitement again began to grow, caused by sharp statements by Alexander Lukashenko, the adoption of amendments to the legislation and “stuffing” about preparing provocations at the border. Is the threat of Belarus’ involvement in a military conflict really growing?

Incitement in public space

On March 7, Alexander Lukashenko accused Ukraine of organizing sabotage in Machulishchi and publicly insulted President Volodymyr Zelensky, calling him a “nit.” “Well, the challenge is up,” he added menacingly. In Kyiv, Lukashenka’s scandalous statements were characterized as an “act of impotence” that will be left unanswered. At the same time, NSDC Secretary Aleksey Danilov stressed that Lukashenka’s behavior “begins to surprise” and Ukraine is ready “for any development of events.”

Soon the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine announced that the Russian leadership was planning to arrange a large-scale provocation on the border of Ukraine and Belarus in order to create the so-called casus belli – a formal reason for waging war.

Later, the Russian human rights project Gulagu.net disseminated similar information. Allegedly, the FSB transferred to Belarus “a group of highly paid mercenaries who are ready to perform, in their understanding, “creative tasks” related to dressing up (obviously in the uniform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine) and committing sabotage and terrorist attacks on behalf of Ukraine” in order to “help in forcing Minsk to participate in war.”

Both stuffings were published without any evidence, and even indirect confirmation of this information was not found.

Lukashenka’s harsh statements and stuffing about possible provocations happen not for the first time – before, everything was limited only to noise in the public space, without serious consequences.

Pre-war laws

However, there are now signs of a long-term preparation for escalation. On March 9, Lukashenka signed resonant amendments to the Criminal Code. The main point of the new law is the introduction of the death penalty for “treason against the state” for government officials and military personnel. Moreover, the level of responsibility of an official does not matter now: the new rules apply to everyone who holds public office or has the status of military personnel. That is, this will also apply to those who are mobilized into the army.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine drew attention to such amendments at the stage of their development. In December 2022, Alexei Gromov, Deputy Head of the Main Operational Directorate of the Ukrainian General Staff, said that the introduction of the death penalty for high treason in Belarus could be one of the steps towards preparing for a war against Ukraine.

The March 9 law also provides for the introduction of criminal liability for “discrediting the Armed Forces, other troops and military formations, paramilitary organizations.” This amendment looks like a tracing-paper from the Russian law of March 4, 2022 – the so-called “fake law”, or “military censorship law”. On the basis of this law, those who oppose the war and try to tell the truth about the invasion of Ukraine are persecuted in Russia. Statements about war crimes of the Russian military, anti-war statements, and even just an attempt to call the war a war are equated to “discrediting” the army in the Russian Federation. But if in Russia they guessed to create such a repressive tool only in the second week of the war, then in Belarus it was adopted preventively.

At the same time, the Security Council of Belarus approved a bill on the people’s militia – now within a month the document will be sent for approval to the House of Representatives. The idea of ​​the authorities is to distribute weapons in case of war to “tested people” who will help the police maintain public order. In fact, the people’s militia is designed just for the situation when the army and special forces will be sent to the front, and in the rear there will not be enough security forces to suppress possible protests.

In addition, State Secretary of the Security Council Alexander Volfovich on March 15 announced additional changes to the legal and regulatory framework in the field of security, explaining that a recent large-scale exercise of government bodies revealed “unprotected places.” He did not specify what those amendments would be. However, the community of former security officials of Belarus BYPOL reports on the development of new laws “On the state of emergency”, “On martial law” and “On state security bodies”. These documents, according to BYPOL, may indicate that Lukashenka is preparing for “the introduction of emergency measures in Belarus.”

It is also worth mentioning that earlier, in early 2023, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Health of Belarus adopted a resolution significantly reducing the requirements for the health of conscripts. And at the end of 2022, an unprecedented-scale audit of mobilization institutions was carried out. Some Belarusians eventually received mobilization orders: they say that if mobilization is announced in Belarus, they must, within 38 hours, without waiting for a summons from the military registration and enlistment office, come with a passport, a military ID, things and a supply of food for the day to the mobilization point at the indicated in prescription address. Moreover, Lukashenka did not even hide the fact that the testing of the system was carried out in order to prevent the mistakes of Russian mobilization.

All these measures can be seen as a systematic preparation for Belarus’ entry into the war. This does not mean that Lukashenka has already made the appropriate decision or will soon make it. However, such an active development of emergency measures indicates that the authorities consider participation in a military conflict as a very real scenario for which one should be prepared.

Military activity: the situation is stable

At the same time, there are no signs of preparations for entering the war in the short term (in the coming weeks). There is no evidence that the formation of an offensive grouping has begun in Belarus, this is regularly emphasized in the reports of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At this stage, the Ukrainian command considers the threat of ground operations on the northern borders low.

To a large extent, such assessments are influenced by the weakness of the grouping of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Belarus. In early March, the Ukrainian side estimated the number of Russian forces at a maximum of 9-10 thousand, which is clearly not enough for full-scale operations (for example, before the invasion on February 24, 2022, the Russian Federation concentrated about 30 thousand soldiers in Belarus). Now the group was supposed to become even weaker. According to the monitoring project “Belarusian Gayun”, since the end of February, as part of the rotation, about 2,900 Russian servicemen and 645 pieces of equipment have left Belarus, while only about 600 servicemen and up to 200 pieces of equipment have arrived.

The size of the Russian group in Belarus is a very important indicator of a possible escalation: Russian assistance can partially offset the weakness of Lukashenka’s army and increase the chances of a successful invasion. However, now Russia probably simply does not have the resources to significantly increase its military presence in Belarus: all forces went to the winter campaign, which ended in a strategic failure. The situation can only change after a new wave of mobilization, which would allow the Kremlin to accumulate reserves. And this will take time. For example, the Institute for the Study of War believes that the most convenient period for a Russian strike from Belarus will be 2023.

Even if we imagine that Lukashenka is ready to rely mainly on his own forces, then right now is not a very good moment to enter the war. The period of spring thaw is coming – the most unfavorable time for offensive operations, and this is another argument in favor of the fact that escalation should not be expected in the coming weeks.

Call from the reserve

At the same time, the day after the adoption of the “execution amendments”, on March 10, Lukashenka signed Decree No. 66 “On conscription of reserve officers for military service.” According to this decree, 250 officers must be called up to the Armed Forces in order to “increase the level of staffing of primary military posts” and “ensure high-quality training of the mobilization reserve.”

The commentary to the document emphasizes that such events are held annually in the Armed Forces. It’s true: the call of reserve officers is a common thing. However, Lukashenka’s current decree differs from the previous ones by one feature: the number of conscripts. If you look at similar decrees by Lukashenka from 2016 to 2021, you can see that then no more than 100 reserve officers were called up at the same time each time. Last year, 150 were called up, and now – 250 – 2.5 times more than in peacetime.

On March 14, the Ministry of Defense also announced the conscription of those liable for military service for planned training, but no figures were announced.

The situation with the conscription of persons liable for military service always attracts increased attention of observers. The fact is that, theoretically, military training can become covert mobilization: the point is to take people into the army, allegedly in connection with planned events, and not let them go until the war starts. Such a mechanism simultaneously allows maintaining calm within the country and misleading a potential adversary. Fears that hidden mobilization is taking place in Belarus under the guise of military training began to appear as early as October 2022. This was written by independent media and announced at the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, at that time these fears did not come true: the conscripts went through the training camp and returned home, and Belarus did not enter the war.

So far, there is no reason to say that the current situation is fundamentally different from the previous ones. Reserve officers are indeed called up more than usual, but still not so much that it looks like the beginning of a full-fledged pre-war mobilization.

Gleb Nerzhin, belsat.eu