The śKalinoŭKastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment (also known as simply Połk Kalinoŭskaha or the Kalinoŭski Regiment, formerly the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Battalion until May 2022) is a group of Belarusian opposition volunteers, which was formed to defend Ukraine against the 2022 Russian invasion.
As of March 2022, it was reported that more than a thousand Belarusians have applied to join the unit. According to its own statements, the battalion is not incorporated into the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine in order to preserve greater autonomy.
The unit is named after the Belarusian and Polish national hero Kastuś Kalinoŭski, who was a leader of the January Uprising in 1863 against the Russian Empire in Belarus and Lithuania.
The regiment is confirmed to have suffered seven killed as of July 2022.
History
Donbas War, 2014–21
The first foreign volunteer group in Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War was the Pahonia detachment, founded in 2014 during the war in Donbas. The following year, the tactical group "Belarus" was formed uniting Belarusian volunteers fighting in different battalions The Monument to the Belarusians who died for Ukraine in Kyiv is dedicated to the Belarusian volunteers who died during the Russian-Ukrainian War.
2022 Russian invasion
On 9 March, the creation of the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Battalion was announced. The battalion is named after Kastuś Kalinoŭski, a 19th-century Belarusian leader of the 1863 January Uprising against the Russian Empire. It was reported that as of 5 March 2022, about 200 Belarusians had joined the battalion. Their motto is ‘First Ukraine, then Belarus’, indicating the volunteers' wish to also liberate Minsk from the Lukashenko regime.
On 13 March, the deputy commander of the battalion, nicknamed "Tur" (real name Aliaksiej Skoblia), was confirmed killed in the Kyiv offensive when his unit was ambushed. On 13 April, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy posthumously awarded Skoblia the title of Hero of Ukraine "for personal courage and heroism in defending the state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, loyalty to the military oath."
On 25 March, it was reported the regiment had taken an oath and has been formally admitted to the Ukrainian Ground Forces. On 29 March, the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Battalion volunteers fought alongside Ukrainian soldiers to recapture Irpin. On 26 March, Dzmitry Apanasovich (call sign "Terror") was killed during fighting in Irpin.
On 1 April, it was reported that thousands of volunteers — many of whom were dissidents who had been arrested following the 2020–2021 Belarusian protests — had applied to be members of the battalion, but that vetting and equipping these volunteers had created a backlog that slowed down their deployment.
On 16 May, a company commander, identified as Pavel "Volat," was reported to have died during the war in Ukraine. The Belarusian newspaper Nasha Niva stated that Volat was the sixth Belarusian fighter killed since the start of the war. "Volat" was killed attempting to rescue four members of the regiment buried under rubble during the Battle of Bakhmut.
On 21 May, battalion commander, Dzianis Prokharaŭ (call sign "Kit") announced that the battalion would become a regiment comprising two separate battalions. This was presented as "a move to the next stage of building a [Belarusian] national military unit" which "tak[es] into account the scale of the tasks facing the Belarusian soldiers". The regiment would consist of three battalions, "Litvin", "Volat", and "Terror." Terror would later split from the Regiment and become an independent unit, the Terror Battalion.
On 17 June, it was announced that volunteers of the Regiment received state Ukrainian decorations "For Battle Merit" and "Ukraine Above All".
On 25-26 June 2022, in Lysychansk, the commander of the Volat battalion, callsign Brest, was killed in action and several other Belarusian fighters were captured or missing.
On 11 July 2022, KKR volunteer soldiers Yan Dyurbeiko (call sign "Trombli") and Sergey Degtev ("Kleshch") were put on the POW exchange list.
In September 2022, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus recognized the Internet resources of the regiment as an extremist group.
In December 2022, the regiment received a BMP-2 armored vehicle, and in January 2023 a captured T-72 tank. The regiment announced the formation of the first mechanized unit.
On June 9, 2023, the regiment met with the Verkhovna Rada committee "For a Democratic Belarus" to begin cooperating with Ukrainian officials on toppling the current government of Belarus and establishing a free and democratic republic friendly to Ukraine.