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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Milo Boyd

Belarusian troops pledge allegiance to Ukraine and boast of seizing Russian tanks

A group of Belarussians fighting for Ukraine have boasted of stealing a Russian tank.

On Friday the Kalinovsky battilion, or Belwarriors as they're known on social media, marked Belarus Freedom Day by pledging allegiance to the Ukrainian armed forces.

The armed group released a video of their soldiers taking an oath and promising to repel the the Russian forces.

This weekend the group published another video in which their bearded commander aims slurs at Vladimir Putin and boasts of stealing Russian military equipment.

"This is a captured equipment and this is destroyed equipment," he tells the camera, according to one translation, before gesturing to both burned out and intact tanks.

The group pledged an oath to the Ukrainian forces on Friday (belwarriors/Facebook)

"But most importantly there are a lot of trophies. Not only here but over there and there."

The camera man then asks the soldier, who is carrying a large machine gun and has the Ukrainian blue tied around his arm, whether he was scared of Russia's military firepower.

"No not at all," he responds.

"Not scared because truth and freedom is with us."

The Belarussian division joined the Ukrainian resistance effort at the beginning of March, following President Volodymyr Zelensky's plea for foreign fighters to help defend his country.

Yan Melnikov announced that he is heading the first unit of foreign volunteers in the Ukrainian armed forces with more than 50 recruits from his country.

"We urge every Belarusian who has a desire to fight shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainians for the common ideals of freedom and the value of sovereignty to join us," he said in a video released by the nationalist Azov Battalion.

The fighter showed what he claimed were Russian tanks (belwarriors/Facebook)

The group is fighting for Ukraine despite the sentiments of the government of Belarus, which has sided with Russia.

President Alexander Lukashenko allowed Russian troops and tanks into Belarus ahead of the invasion, giving Putin a key route from the north towards Kyiv.

It is unclear where the Belarussian public in general stand on the Russian invasion, given how brutally the country's police crack down on protests.

Zelensky called on foreign fighters to help Ukraine on February 27 - the day the war officially began.

A day later, he signed a decree waiving visas for any foreign nationals wishing to join the Ukrainian army, while the foreign affairs ministry launched a website providing details about how to apply.

Over the following fortnight Ukrainian authorities said that some 20,000 people from 52 countries have applied to join the legion.

The Belarussians have been fighting against the Russians for the whole of March (belwarriors/Facebook)

Among them is a British garage owner with no military experience who has vowed to fight "to the death".

Adam Ennis, 35, signed up to an international platoon in Kyiv.

The amateur fighter's extraordinary and terrifying mission began when he boarded a £40 one way flight from Edinburgh to Krakow with just a gym bag on his shoulder.

He escaped death after leaving a base near the Polish border just days before it was destroyed by Russian bombs.

Adam told the Daily Record how he has since been on daily patrols in Ukraine and witnessed active combat with firing on Vladimir Putin's soldiers.

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