Aleksei Milchakov, commander of the Rusich Diversionary and Reconnaissance Group. Photo via VKontakte
Moscow Now Training Belarusians in Russian Camp Headed by Openly Fascist Leader
Staunton, VA, May 31, 2016 — Belarusians are now being trained in a camp in Russia that is headed by an openly fascist Russian nationalist, an arrangement that Moscow might exploit against Minsk by claiming there are “extreme Belarusian nationalists” that the Russians must intervene to put down and one that could be a model for Kremlin actions in other post-Soviet states.
The commandant of the camp, Aleksey Milchakov, has confirmed to RFE/RL’s Belarusian Service that young Belarusians are there now. And as Kseniya Kirillova, a US-based Russian journalist points out, Milchakov has never concealed his neo-Nazi sympathies.
She notes that he has frequently been photographed with flags displaying the swastika and as a commander of the pro-Moscow “Rusich” brigade in the Donbass proudly showed himself to be a killer of Ukrainians. At the same time, he has demonstrated that he is ever more closely tied with the Russian government.
According to Kirillova, this rapprochement rose to “a qualitatively new level” when Michalkov took part in a meeting with Vladislav Surkov, Putin’s troubleshooter, and received a reward from Sergey Aksyonov, the head of the Russian occupation administration in Crimea.
Officials in the Belarusian capital are thus increasingly concerned about “the attempt to involve [Belarusian] young people in the latest neo-Nazi project of ‘the Russian world.’” Indeed, Yury Tsarik of Minsk’s Center for Strategic and Foreign Policy Research says the expert community is taking this latest Russian action “quite seriously.”
For many years, Tsarik says, there have been Belarusian young people involved in patriotic camps inside Belarus. But “before the war in Ukraine, the situation didn’t generate particular worries.” Now, however, these camps are suspect and even more suspect are camps in Russia where Belarusians are being trained.
Not only are such trainees being told that Belarus and other post-Soviet states are simply accidents of history that must be corrected, the Minsk researcher says; but there are real fears that they could be used directly or indirectly to undermine Belarusian sovereignty, either as shock troops for Russia or as supposed radicals Moscow might use to justify intervention.
Concerns are especially great now, Tsarik says, because Belarus is exploring closer ties with the West and Moscow will do whatever it can to block them. As a result, the use of “hard” power now cannot be excluded, and many errors could be committed that could trigger a disaster.
For more on Rusich and Michalkov, see also “Meet the Russian Fighters Building a Base Between Mariupol and Donetsk“
Moscow Creating Military Units It Would Need to Invade Baltic Countries, Shtepa Says
Staunton, VA, June 6, 2016 — It is always risky to derive intentions from capacities, but Moscow’s moves to create new military units opposite the Baltic states suggests that the Kremlin now has the capacity to invade Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, something that seems absurd to the West but may not to those who live in Vladimir Putin’s “alternate reality.”
In a commentary in Postimees June 6, Vadim Shtepa, a Karelian regionalist now living in exile in Estonia, says that 20 years ago it would have appeared ridiculous to talk about any Russian invasion of the Baltic countries. Russia accepted their independence and sought to develop good relations.
But today, he says, it appears “history is repeating itself. Putin’s Russia ever more conceives of itself as the literal continuation of the USSR with that state’s attempts to dictate its will to other countries. And if these countries conduct an independent policy, they aren’t protected from suffering Russian military invasions,” whether in Prague in 1968 or Ukraine now.
And this Soviet restorationism is not just at the level of rhetoric but also at the level of institutional practice. In 2015, Moscow recreated the First Guards Tank Army, which had existed in the USSR between 1943 and 1991 and in the Russian forces until 1999. That force is clearly available for use against the Baltic countries.
On May 11, Shtepa notes, Moscow’s Zvezda television channel reported that “the new unit is capable of levelling the threat from the side of the Baltic countries,” adding that “the new Russian divisions will become the hammer which will crush any defense” they might think to offer.
This army includes, according to Russian officials, “no fewer than 500 to 600 tanks, 600 to 800 armored personal carriers, 300 to 400 pieces of field artillery, and 35,000 to 50,000 soldiers.” More, these officials say that it is being equipped with the most modern versions of all weapons Moscow now has.
Russian writers like Viktor Murakhovsky have sought to reassure the Baltic people that they have nothing to fear from this division as it is primarily located near Moscow. But another Russian expert has pointed out that it could be moved forward to the Baltic borders very quickly if the Kremlin decided to act.
And as Aleksandr Golts of Yezhednevny Zhurnal has put it: Moscow has “really approached to a turning point in its relations with the surrounding world. Now, no one in the West discusses whether Russia has aggressive intentions; instead, all discuss how it will realize these plans.”
And Golts adds: many Russian commanders say that as soon as it is organized, “the first guards tank army will take the Baltics.” Other experts based in the West concur and point to some the special units that have been created within that army which would be of use only in an aggressive campaign.
And the creation of that Russian army is not the only such institutional change in Russian military forces: Earlier this month, Russian commanders announced the formation of a new army corps in Kaliningrad. It is under the command of Maj.Gen.Yury Yarovitsky who earlier was deputy chief of staff of the first guards tank army.
Those who dismiss the possibility of a Russian move against the Baltic countries often cite the fact that the three are members of NATO. For them, such an invasion is as impossible as was the Anschluss of Crimea three years ago. And they forget the conclusion of some that the West is not “prepared to die for Narva.”
“From a rational point of view,” Shtepa says, any Russian invasion would be ridiculous, especially now that there is a trip wire of NATO forces in the three Baltic countries. But rationality may not be in play here. As Angela Merkel has pointed out, Putin lives in “a different reality” and apparently a majority of Russians do as well.
And thus tragedies are possible, he suggests. Years ago, Yevgeny Yevtushenko asked in a poem “Do the Russians Want War?” Then, no one did, but today, Shtepa points out, “the Russian hurrah patriotic publicists answer this question in the affirmative: ‘Russia is ready for the coming cataclysms, for a Major War.’”
Given such attitudes, one can only assume that the Kremlin is prepared to launch one, even if when and where remain unclear – and the only reasonable approach is to keep track of Russia’s development of its capacities as an indication of what it is thinking about now and may very well do, however “absurd” that may be.