(MINSK, BELARUS) – A Russian military recruitment agency has been advertising contracts for service in Russia’s armed forces to Belarusian citizens, promising payments of up to $28,000 (GBP 22,200) upon signing up. The recruitment website, which operated under Belarus’s national internet domain and displayed Belarusian state symbols and a local contact number, was linked to the Bratskiy Syndicate, a Russian military recruitment agency.
The website, called Zashchitnik or Protector, offered applicants help with paperwork, a welcome in Moscow and millions of Russian rubles. It allowed applicants to express a preference for their future military role, including driver, cook, medic or drone operator. However, the Russian army would ultimately make the decision based on operational necessity. The site’s personal data operator was listed as Russian entrepreneur Daniil Rodionov, who describes himself as chief operating officer of the Bratskiy Syndicate.
The Belarusian website stopped working days after an article was published by Belsat, a sister channel of TVP World. Whether the authorities blocked it or its operators withdrew it remains unknown. The Bratskiy Syndicate’s main website, however, remains accessible, advertising recruitment for contracts with Russia’s defence ministry. The agency describes a process covering screening documents, travel, accommodation and enlistment. Recruiters can submit candidates through an application, track their progress, obtain tickets and receive payments. There is also a referral programme.
The Belarusian offer documented by Belsat targeted citizens aged 18 to 58 and promised a signing payment of $27,000 (GBP 21,400). Monthly pay started at $2,600 (GBP 2,060) in one section and over $3,000 (GBP 2,380) in another. The same offer listed bonuses for offensive operations and destroyed equipment alongside compensation for wounds and death. Presenting each outcome with a price can make the decision resemble a financial calculation, but an applicant cannot know from that list where the promised money will arrive, what assignment they will receive or whether they will survive.
Belarusian law formally criminalises mercenary activity and participation in foreign armed conflicts, carrying penalties of up to 10 years in prison. Yet Belarusian authorities have largely avoided prosecuting citizens serving in Russia’s armed forces. While cases involving private military companies have received greater legal attention, according to Ukrainian intelligence, nearly 2,900 Belarusian citizens have served in the Russian military, with at least 440 reported killed.
Belsat documented prison sentences for Belarusians who fought or attempted to fight for Ukraine. It reported no publicly known convictions since the full-scale invasion for Belarusians fighting for Russia, unlike those who fought on the Ukrainian side. That reported disparity raises questions about whom the authorities pursue and whose recruitment they tolerate. Belsat also found Russian army recruitment advertisements in Telegram chats used by migrants in Belarus trying to enter European Union countries, establishing advertising aimed at this audience. Someone stranded in a forest in a foreign country and short of money may find promises of income and organised travel especially persuasive.
Janis Kocinski, diplomatic adviser to the president-elect of Belarus, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, said the recruitment operation was illegal under Belarusian law. “This website had a Belarusian domain in Cyrillic, so this is not an accident,” he said. “An address within the Cyrillic zone can only be obtained through the accredited Belarusian official registrar, and the zone is controlled by the operational and analytical centre, a security service directly subordinate to Lukashenko. So Russian recruitment agents physically could not obtain this address and be unnoticed.”
Mr Kocinski said the regime is preparing for the next generation of war. “Of course Lukashenko and his services know about all of this and they know this network,” he said. “So it is happening definitely with their tactic or other consent. That in itself is a form definitely a crime under Belarusian law because recruiting people for such wars or assisting in it is a criminal offence.”
He noted that the support Lukashenko has given to Russia’s military and industrial complex, the infrastructure handed over to Russians, medical treatment provided and now the recruitment of Belarusian citizens are all elements of a creeping mobilisation. “There is no reversal, no sign that Lukashenko is winding this process back,” he said. “What we need to do here of course is to keep explaining to the Belarusian people that it’s a one-way ticket.”
Mr Kocinski said the recruitment targets people with low incomes and those in border regions, offering them large sums of money. “Some of the people get caught on this, but this is something we keep working on,” he said. “We agreed during the meeting with President Zelensky in May that we will continue to do all the possible informational campaigns to explain to the Belarusian people that again that is a one-way ticket and it’s a ticket for the war of aggression that Russia is doing against Ukraine.”
On whether Lukashenko is following orders from the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, Mr Kocinski said the Belarusian leader is paying back Putin for the support the Kremlin has given to his regime. “He is selling our sovereignty step by step to Russia and he’s not in the position to say no to Putin,” he said. “But the vast majority of Belarusians don’t support war. More than 80 percent are against the participation of the Russian army in the war. The army itself doesn’t want to fight and doesn’t want to kill Ukrainians or be killed by Ukrainians.”
Mr Kocinski said Russia is losing up to 30,000 people a month, creating a shortfall that it needs to fill. But he said Putin does not want another area of turbulence in Belarus. “This is not a decision of Lukashenko to send the army to fight against Ukraine,” he said. “I do believe that it’s mostly the decision actually with Putin calculating all the possible risks. What they do now is they try to use Belarus as a military hub, as an assembly shop, as a way to circumvent sanctions and also to use this mobilisation and recruitment mechanism.”
He noted that many Belarusians who joined the Russian army were living in Russia, were in prison in Russia or had low incomes. Meanwhile, many brave Belarusians are fighting for Ukraine. “People who go and fight for Ukraine risk not only their lives but their family, because immediately when you join the Ukrainian forces, people get criminal prosecution in Belarus and their family become direct targets as well,” he said. “That’s the main difference. If you fight for Ukraine, you will be prosecuted by the Belarusian justice department. If you’re fighting for Russia, you will not.”
On whether Lukashenko could be persuaded to move away from Russia in exchange for sanctions relief, Mr Kocinski said the Belarusian leader has signed a blood debt contract with Putin. “I don’t think there is a way back for him,” he said. “His fate is tight with Putin’s. They’re like the Cain and Abel of crime, partners and brothers in crime. He’s definitely on the leash with Putin and this leash becomes shorter and shorter.”
Mr Kocinski said Lukashenko is able to offer the release of political prisoners as a concession. “The American administration is doing a great job on releasing political prisoners and we support this diplomatic efforts,” he said. “We have taken care of 25 political prisoners. Some stay in Lithuania, some are going to Poland as well. Big thanks to the Polish authority and Ministry of Foreign Affairs specifically for receiving our heroes.”
On whether the West missed its chance in Belarus after the rigged election in 2020, Mr Kocinski said real sanctions from the European Union only came nine months after the election and more powerful sanctions took place only in May after the hijacking of a Ryanair flight. “There was this moment indeed of more support that we could have received back in 2020,” he said. “Many analysts say that maybe if Belarus at that time became democratic, it could have prevented the war in Ukraine as well.”
He said the focus should now be on what can be done. “What we need in terms of Belarus and also in terms of Ukraine is to have strategic consistency,” he said. “Patience is a weak word. We need to have strategic consistency. The policy of the EU now to support Ukraine, to support democratic forces of Belarus, to have the non-recognition of the Lukashenko regime, to put more pressure on it and to help the people and society that is both inside and outside the country, remains pro-democratic and anti-Lukashenko and wants freedom and democracy. We need to consistently support it because only consistency can lead us to success.”
Mr Kocinski said Lukashenko and Putin want the West to give up. “They want the West to say we are tired, they want the West to say let’s turn the page,” he said. “Lukashenko has done it with the West before. He has this history of three decades of fooling partners in Europe and across the Atlantic. So here we need to be strong. We need to be consistent and this is exactly what these dictators in Minsk and Moscow are afraid of.”
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