Lukashenko Conducts Covert Mobilization in Belarus

The Belarusian newspaper Nasha Niva reported on Oct. 13 that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has chosen to carry out a covert mobilization. The outlet cited unnamed sources when it claimed that the president intended to pass off the draft campaign as a combat capability check and that the first phase of the operation would only have an impact on rural areas.

According to Nasha Niva, Lukashenko decided against making the mobilization public after observing the fallout from President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of the draft in Russia.

An unknown number of individuals will be enlisted. According to a military officer from Belarus, if fewer than 2,000 people sign up, the campaign’s objective is to “retrofit individual units” for “narrow combat missions,” like artillery operations. He provided that “it will be time to sound the alarm” if the conscript population exceeds 5,000.

Belarus declared a “counterterrorism operation state,” according to Vladimir Makei, the country’s foreign minister, who spoke to the Russian newspaper Izvestia on Friday, Oct.14.

Makei claims that Lukashenko made the choice after participating in numerous meetings with the security services of Belarus. “There was information about certain neighboring states planning provocations associated almost with the capture of certain sections of Belarusian territory,” declared the minister.

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Makei did not identify the alleged organizers of the provocations.

Ihor Kyzym, the Ukrainian ambassador to Belarus, was summoned the day before and given a note claiming that Ukraine was preparing an attack on Belarusian territory, according to a report from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on Oct. 9.