WARSAW, Poland — Inside a sunny classroom in a leafy neighborhood, a burly man in army fatigues and a black martial arts T-shirt holds up a tourniquet."We use this for serious gunshot and shrapnel wounds, or if we have severed limbs because of explosions," he says in Polish to about 30 men. An interpreter repeats the instructions in Russian for the class — all men are from the small, former Soviet republic of Belarus. They're learning first aid before heading to Ukraine, where they will join the Kastus Kalinouski Battalion, an all-Belarusian volunteer brigade that fights alongside Ukrainian soldiers."We have this motto — for our and your freedom," says Pavel Kukhta, a brigade leader in charge of new recruits who says he receives 100 applications a day. "We're totally in solidarity with Ukrainian people."Belarusians like Kukhta see Ukraine's defense against Russia as inextricably linked to Belarus' fate as a future democracy free of Kremlin influence. The idea is that Russia's defeat in Ukraine would both deal a blow to the Russian President Vladimir Putin's imperial ambitions and bring down his close ally, Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko. The resistance includes volunteer soldiers as well as activists and ex-spies opposed to Belarus's authoritarian president. Lukashenko has been in power since 1994, and is the only European leader who openly supports Russia's war in Ukraine. Most available polls show the majority of Belarusians oppose it."If the Ukrainians will lose the fight," says Artyom, a 34-year-old accountant and one of the battalion recruits, "we don't have any chance as a country."Artyom won't reveal his last name. He says he fears his family could be harassed by Lukashenko's government or its allies in the Kremlin. Kukhta, the commander, stands nearby packing a van full of supplies including flak jackets, blankets, sleeping bags and fatigues. He says this kind of sentiment is not just paranoia."Lukashenko throws its [government] critics in jail," he says."We have elections which are suspicious, we have protests, we have repression, we have people arrested, and we have people forced to flee the country," says Belarusian activist Hanna Kaniewska. "This is the story of the Belarusian diaspora."Kaniewska leads a youth hub and co-working space for other Belarusians in Warsaw."We see this difference between old Belarus — Lukashenko's Belarus — and new Belarus," she says. "Everybody believes that Belarus can be better because people really want it."Lukashenko's quarter-century reign has earned him the title, "Europe's last dictator." His most serious challenge came in 2020, when Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a charismatic English teacher, drew huge crowds supporting her candidacy for president. She ran for office after Lukashenko arrested her husband, Sergei Tsikhanousky, one of the opposition candidates. Lukashenko declared a landslide victory in the election but observers said it was rigged.
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