‘They Will Give Machine Guns To All Of You — You Will Be With Weapons All The Time’
- 7.04.2023, 18:23
In Ivatsevichy, construction equipment is being collected near the military registration and enlistment office.
In Brest, in early April, they began to urgently recruit military personnel for yet another “test of the combat readiness of the army”, which started in Belarus on April 3. There are cases when people were simply taken away from work without warning about it in advance.
Now it became known that men were suddenly summoned in the regional centers of the region. Some also report that they also collect construction equipment.
Ivatsevichy: “They will give all of us machine guns — you will be with weapons all the time”
The editors of zerkalo.io received some alarming messages from Aliaksandr, a reader from Ivatsevichy. Recently, some people came to the man with a subpoena, telling they were instructed by the military registration and enlistment office to deliver them according to the lists, but the man was not found at home, and his wife refused to take the document without him.
— I called my friends, many who are between 35 and 40 years old received subpoenas, some in their hands, some were called on the phone. Yesterday my wife and I were driving in the village on the road to Slonim, there were two soft buses from Ivatsevichi registered and one from Pinsk. She looked — there were only men sitting there, — Aliaksandr says emotionally. — At our work, several employees were summoned to the personnel department and given subpoenas there, with confirmation of receipt with a signature. I'm worried that they can summon me like that. This is how my friend got a subpoena, went to the medical examination, and there, despite the bad tests and the fact that he had an ulcer, they said that he was healthy. And they explained: now, if you don’t go to the doctor to check your ulcer twice a year, but complain about it during the medical examination when drafted into the army, they will consider that you are trying to evade the army service.
Aliaksandr says that men from his city are being called to Slonim. And there, according to him, near the buildings of the local 11th Guards Separate Mechanized Brigade, they notice a cluster of construction equipment.
— My friend from Slonim drove by yesterday and said that there were a lot of tractors, MAZs, dump trucks, and many buses from the third region, from the Homel region. It feels like they want to send them to the Homel region. They also collect equipment near the military registration and enlistment office — only MAZs and excavators. This is scary: what is happening, where are they taking people and why? Friends say that they take all men who have driving categories C and E, and they don’t ask whether a person served in the army or not. They don’t give details — only that it’s for 35 days and with equipment, they say: “They will give out machine guns to everyone — you will be with weapons all the time.” Others say that one part has already left on buses, and the second will go to Slonim on Saturday, already on vehicles, 39 units: tractors and trucks.
Aliaksandr is frightened by such a sudden check and so far he is trying not to appear at work under various pretexts so as not to receive a subpoena there. The man is worried that this is a “covert mobilization”, although he doubts his conclusions:
— My friend who works in the housing and utilities services was also asked at work to distribute subpoenas — she saw whole stacks of them for our small area. I am afraid that this is precisely a covert mobilization. Even if earlier acquaintances went to training camps, and they were allowed to use telephones in the location without problems, now the telephones have been banned for the people participating in those activities. They are ordered to turn them off and turn it on only at a certain time to make a call. Why is everything so hidden? You see, if these are exercises, then why do we need construction equipment, what will we build?