According to Azarau, ensuring Russian President Vladimir Putin’s defeat in Ukraine is necessary to weaken Lukashenko’s regime.
“Without Putin, there is no Lukashenko,” he said. “If Ukraine can launch a successful offensive, Putin will no longer have time for Belarus.”
Azarau said the group has been committing acts of sabotage against Russia in efforts to assist Kyiv in the war, attacking Russian aircraft, damaging railways and training Belarusian volunteers fighting alongside Ukraine’s forces. In February 2023, the group claimed responsibility for a drone attack that severely damaged a Russian military aircraft near Minsk.
Azarau, a former Belarusian security services official, said he resigned from his job after “witnessing election fraud in the 2020 presidential election and the heavy-handed crackdown on the protests that followed.” He fled to Ukraine and eventually to Poland, from where he leads BYPOL.
On Feb. 15, a Belarusian court convicted Azarau in absentia along with five other former law enforcement officers for “inciting social hatred, plotting to seize power forcibly, and creating an extremist group.” Azarau received the harshest sentence — 25 years in prison and a hefty fine of around $123,500.
Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, recently confirmed he would run for president again in 2025.
A close ally of Putin, Lukashenko has stood by the Russian president — whom he considers an “elder brother” — throughout his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He has allowed Putin to station tactical nuclear weapons on its territory.
Western states have condemned Belarus’ involvement in the war on Ukraine, with the European Parliament calling Lukashenko “an accomplice.”