March 25, Pozirk. Pavieł Šurmiej of the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment fighting Russia in Ukraine has urged Belarusian patriots to join the regiment.
Belarusians are scattered all over the world after the big emigration wave of the last few years, he noted in his appeal posted on Telegram on the 106th anniversary of Belarusian short-lived independence.
“Those who stayed in their homeland have a choice of becoming cannon fodder in [Vladimir] Putin’s army or standing together with us and securing a decent future in an independent European Belarus for themselves and their children,” he said. “Don’t wait for this choice to be made for you.”
Exiled Belarusians may have found relative peace and comfort, but not their homeland, he noted. “It’s time to act if you, like me, dream that we and our children can live in a free Belarus,” he stressed.
Šurmiej, a native of Lida, Hrodna region, is an athlete and former Olympian. He has been fighting alongside Ukrainian forces since March 2022. Belarusian authorities filed criminal charges against him.
The Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment was formed in March 2022 and joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Two months later, it announced the formation of two battalions, Vołat and Terror.
Later, it organized a battalion called Litvin and announced Terror’s spin-off.
In September 2023, the regiment formed the Western battalion, which included “officers from NATO countries and foreign nationals with combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Minsk opened a criminal investigation against the regiment, designating it as an “extremist group.”
