LUKASHENKO AND THE DO UT DES OF GUNS BELARUSSIANS AT WAR AND TRANSIT OF WEAPONS Although NATO intelligence portrays the Belarusians as the armed wing of Russia and artfully circulates news - punctually denied by the facts - about hordes of Belarusian soldiers in Ukraine, Minsk's support for Putin is evident, but not how it feels say in Western news. The Belarusian dictator knows how much his existence is linked to a thin red thread that leads straight to the Kremlin, but glimmers of independence remain (and also inscrutable but logical calculations of Realpolitik) that keep Belarusian soldiers away from the front, at least for now. The only Belarusians present in Ukraine are the hundreds of men of the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment and the Pahonia Regiment, who are fighting against the Russians and the Russian-speaking separatists of Donbas. Moreover, Russian intelligence is well aware of the recruitment base for Belarusian dissidents, which is in Warsaw, and someone may have infiltrat...