How Belarusian hospitals concealed Russia’s military casualties in the Ukraine war

Vilnius, Lithuania — As his daughters dozed off within the again seat, his spouse filmed him driving, eyes narrowed, centered on the darkish highway forward. Andrei, a health care provider, had been plotting their escape from Belarus since 2020, when the Kremlin-backed regime cracked down on a preferred rebellion, sending the nation spiraling deeper into authoritarian rule and engulfing it in a local weather of concern.

When Russia launched its assault on Ukraine from Belarus’ southern doorstep, getting out all of the sudden felt extra pressing. His household watched from the home windows of their condo block as helicopters and missiles thundered via the sky. Inside days, Andrei — whose identify has been modified for his security — mentioned he discovered himself being compelled to deal with Russian troopers injured in Moscow’s botched assault on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Then, on the finish of March, he was jailed on trumped-up corruption prices. After his launch in Might, and punctiliously weighing the dangers, he determined it was time to depart.

In order to not spark any suspicion, Andrei requested one in all their neighbors to sneak the household’s suitcases, full of authorized paperwork, just a few garments and a photograph album, out of their constructing and stash them in a automotive. Late one Friday night in August, after he had completed his shift on the hospital, they met in a parking zone with none safety cameras to choose up their baggage. Then the household set off.

They stopped on a rural, grime highway and Andrei kissed his spouse and women goodbye. All being nicely, they’d cross via the official border checkpoint and reunite with him in Lithuania, the place he deliberate to say asylum. Inside one in all his daughter’s toys, Andrei had hidden a USB flash drive carrying proof of what he had witnessed — dozens of X-rays of wounded Russian troopers. He instructed them he beloved them, turned and walked into the woods.

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko allowed his shut ally Russia in February to make use of the nation, which shares a 674-mile border with Ukraine, as a staging floor for its invasion. Along with his permission, Russian President Vladimir Putin handled Belarus as an extension of Moscow’s territory, sending tools and round 30,000 troops ostensibly for joint military exercises — the most important deployment to the previous Soviet state for the reason that finish of the Chilly Conflict. Russia erected momentary camps and hospitals in Belarus’ frozen fields, dispatching army {hardware}, artillery, helicopters and fighter jets close to the border.

When Putin declared his “special military operation” in a pre-dawn televised handle on February 24, he despatched missiles, paratroopers and an enormous armored column of troopers rolling south from Belarusian soil, setting in movement what was supposed to be a lightning strike to decapitate the federal government in Kyiv. However as Russia’s advance stalled and setbacks mounted, Moscow started to spirit wounded troopers again throughout the border to Belarus for remedy in a number of civilian hospitals, a CNN investigation has revealed. The medical doctors working there have been drafted right into a battle that they didn’t join, unwittingly enlisted as quasi-combat medics and obliged by their hippocratic oath to supply life-saving care.

Many had been compelled to signal non-disclosure agreements, instructed not to talk about what they noticed. Some, like Andrei, later fled. From their working tables, Belarusian medical employees gained maybe the clearest sense of the size of casualties suffered by Russia within the early weeks of the battle — describing younger, shell-shocked troopers who thought they had been being despatched for workout routines solely to seek out themselves shedding a limb in a battle they had been ill-prepared to battle. Whereas Lukashenko admitted that Belarus was offering medical assist to Russian army personnel, little is understood about what occurred within the hospitals the place they had been taken, which had been saved beneath strict surveillance. In interviews with Belarusian medical doctors, members of the nation’s medical diaspora, human rights activists, army analysts and safety sources, CNN examined the position Belarus performed in treating Russian casualties, whereas the Kremlin sought to conceal them. Their testimonies and documentation — together with medical data — provide insights into the Belarusian authorities’s complicity within the Ukraine battle, as fears mount that the nation is perhaps sucked additional into the battle.

Precisely what number of Russian troopers have been killed or wounded in Ukraine stays a thriller to all however just a few contained in the Kremlin. The Russian protection ministry mentioned on March 2 that early casualties amounted to 498 Russian troopers killed and practically 1,600 injured in motion. However US and NATO estimates across the similar time put the variety of useless considerably greater: between 3,000 and 10,000. Seven months into the battle, Russian Protection Minister Sergei Shoigu revised the official tally, saying practically 6,000 Russian troopers had died. The Pentagon mentioned in August that it believed the true toll was way more: as many as 80,000 dead or wounded.

Belarus’ stranglehold on data — Lukashenko’s regime has put unbiased information media beneath extreme strain, restricted free speech and launched new laws extending the dying penalty for “makes an attempt to hold out acts of terrorism” — has supplied helpful cowl for Russia in repressing particulars about its injured and useless. In latest months, quite a few individuals have been arrested for filming Russian army automobiles, in line with Viasna, a Belarusian human rights group whose imprisoned founder was not too long ago awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Despite the repressive surroundings, hints of Moscow’s troop losses have emerged on social media and native experiences. In late February, the Belarusian Hajun project, an activist monitoring group that tracks army exercise within the nation, began sharing pictures on Telegram of Russian medical automobiles ferrying fighters throughout the border from the frontline. Drawing on a community of trusted native sources, the group posted footage of inexperienced, Soviet-era “PAZ” buses marked with pink crosses and a white letter “V” — a logo believed to face for “Vostok”, or east — and armored ambulances in Gomel area.

“We will verify they (Russians) used Belarusian infrastructure, together with medical buildings and area hospitals. Additionally they used morgues … and so they used prepare stations or airbases to move useless individuals or injured individuals, we now have photographs of that,” Anton Motolko, a Belarusian blogger who fled Minsk in 2020 and based Belarusian Hajun mission, instructed CNN. Motolko mentioned his sources instructed him that morgues within the space had been overflowing, and {that a} regular stream of wounded troopers had arrived at Mazyr Metropolis Hospital, the place Andrei labored.

In mid-February, Andrei watched in horror as his hometown of Mazyr seemingly became a sprawling army base — armored tanks rolled down the streets, Russian troopers roamed native retailers and received drunk at bars downtown. He and his household now not felt protected, and averted being exterior after darkish. Quickly they started to suspect that Russia was making ready for battle. Because the army drills had been because of wrap up on February 20, Andrei mentioned his hospital administration prolonged a directive to deal with Russian troopers freed from cost till March 10. “They should have thought the battle would finish by then,” Andrei mentioned, including that, two days later, Russian officers from the sphere hospital exterior Mazyr cleaned out the town’s blood financial institution reserves.

On the morning of February 24, the primary day of combating, Andrei recalled a hospital official gathering all the medical doctors into a gathering room, ordering them to maintain 250 beds free for Russian casualties, cease all deliberate surgical procedures and ship what Belarusian sufferers they may house. “Then they warned us that we weren’t allowed to share any details about Russian troopers. We needed to signal a non-disclosure kind, forbidding us to share any photographs, paperwork,” Andrei mentioned. “They instructed us that we had been being watched by the Russian Federal Safety Companies (FSB), that that they had methods of monitoring our telephones.” Whereas he didn’t see any Russian FSB, Andrei mentioned he did discover native Belarusian State Safety Committee (KGB) brokers stalking the halls of the hospital. CNN has reached out to Mazyr Metropolis Hospital for remark.

Aliaksandr Azarau, head of ByPol, a company arrange by ex-Belarusian police and safety service members, instructed CNN that Mazyr authorities went to nice lengths to maintain details about the variety of wounded Russian troopers, and the forms of accidents they sustained, beneath wraps. Azarau mentioned that the KGB departments for Mazyr, together with the area’s division of inside affairs, put Mazyr Metropolis Hospital “beneath round the clock surveillance” whereas ”warning the employees of non-public duty for disclosing details about army personnel present process remedy within the hospital.”

Nonetheless, Andrei managed to secretly photocopy the X-rays of dozens of troops handled at Mazyr Metropolis Hospital, which he shared with CNN. “What I took with me, that a part of the archive, might have gotten me into authorized hassle for espionage,” he mentioned, including that he had taken the chance to supply proof of a facet of the battle that has up to now gone unseen, smuggling them out of Belarus in his daughter’s toy cellphone. The scans included the names and ages of the troopers, a lot of whom had been between 19 and 21 years previous, capturing their accidents in stark black and white.

Andrei mentioned he noticed the most important wave of casualties arrive at Mazyr hospital en masse within the early hours of February 28. After receiving a name that the troopers had been incoming, the medical doctors assembled on the entrance to the emergency room round midnight, ready. Quickly, busloads of injured troops started to pour in. Russian troopers carted them inside on stretchers, dumping them on the entrance doorways, Andrei mentioned.

In actuality, the hospital was stuffed with troopers, Andrei mentioned. Some had been lacking eyes, others required amputations — having arrived with gangrenous, shattered limbs — just a few had been paralyzed, one had misplaced a part of his mind, one other his decrease jaw. A number of had been carrying tourniquets for days to staunch the blood, their our bodies peppered with bullets and shrapnel, the X-rays confirmed. “There have been extra wounded, in want of an operation, than we had working tables,” Andrei mentioned. “The Russians simply gave us their injured [soldiers], and didn’t give a rattling about them.”

Most of the Russians had been combating in areas exterior of Kyiv — in Hostomel, the place they suffered main losses at a key airfield, in Bucha and Borodianka, suburbs that they terrorized for weeks, and in Chernobyl, the place their forces had been uncovered to radiation within the extremely poisonous zone often known as the “Crimson Forest.” Andrei mentioned he handled Russian paratroopers and particular forces injured within the botched assault on Hostomel airfield, the place they instructed him their helicopter got here beneath assault. “They had been skilled killers. We needed to deal with them, that was our job. I felt disgusted by the entire thing. However, as a health care provider, I’m not actually allowed to really feel disgusted,” he mentioned. Russian Main Common Sergei Nyrkov, who suffered a extreme belly harm in Chernobyl, was additionally handled at Mazyr hospital, in line with his X-ray, which was amongst these Andrei smuggled out.

However the majority of the injured had been younger, inexperienced troopers and conscripts from distant components of Russia, Andrei mentioned. CNN has reached out to the Russian Ministry of Protection about these allegations, in addition to accusations it has co-opted Belarus to hold out an “act of aggression” towards Ukraine, in violation of worldwide regulation.

On March 1, at a gathering of Belarus’ Safety Council, Lukashenko acknowledged that hospitals had been offering Russian troopers with life-saving remedy. “We deal with them and can proceed treating these guys – in Gomel, Mazyr, and I feel in another district capital when they’re transported to us. What’s unsuitable with that? Injured individuals have at all times obtained medical remedy throughout any battle,” he mentioned, earlier than dismissing experiences that Russia had suffered big losses as pretend information.

“Our self-exiled opposition and the remaining shout about hundreds of injured [Russian military personnel] delivered to Gomel. Nothing like that. We have handled about 160-170 injured on this total interval,” Lukashenko added.

However Andrei and different medical professionals within the area inform a unique story. In early March, 40 to 50 Russian casualties had been dropped at Mazyr Metropolis Hospital every single day, shuttled out and in once more like a “conveyor belt,” Andrei mentioned. Most arrived at nighttime of evening, or early within the morning, in inexperienced Russian army buses and ambulances. “We, the medical doctors on the hospital, thought that possibly they had been fearful about safety, so that they introduced them beneath the quilt of the evening. They had been afraid of highway visitors to see the pink cross on their automobiles. Individuals would know,” Andrei mentioned. The Russians additionally tried to deliver the useless to the hospital, he mentioned, including: “They didn’t know what to do with them.”

Anna Krasulina, spokeswoman for exiled Belarusian opposition chief Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, instructed Ukrainian parliamentary TV channel “Rada” in March that the morgues in Mazyr were flooded with the bodies of dead Russian soldiers. In April, Tsikhanouskaya met with members of the US State Department in Washington, DC, handing over evidence of Lukashenko’s involvement within the battle in Ukraine. The paperwork, seen by CNN, element how Belarus supplied key infrastructure to Russia, together with missile launch positions, railway traces, and medical help.

Citing open supply data, Franak Viačorka, Tsikhanouskaya’s chief political adviser, instructed CNN that Russians had been utilizing hospitals in each the Gomel and Brest areas between the beginning of the battle and April, however that there have been additionally “many instances when medical doctors refused to take Russian troopers,” describing this as grassroots resistance. He added that Russians haven’t been utilizing infrastructure like hospitals in Belarus since April.

Mazyr was one in all not less than three hospitals in Gomel area that handled Russian casualties, in line with medical and safety sources, who estimated that the amenities collectively cared for tons of of troopers. Mikalai, a health care provider who left the area and whose identify has additionally been modified for his security, mentioned that the Regional Scientific Hospital and the Republican Analysis Heart for Radiation Drugs and Human Ecology had been amongst these offering remedy, however that the latter was largely working with Russian medical employees introduced in for the battle.

After receiving a affected person transferred from the Republican Analysis Heart for Radiation Drugs and Human Ecology, Mikalai mentioned that he had been inquisitive about how the hospital was working. So, late one evening, he drove slowly previous the complicated. “I noticed when it began getting darkish, army medical buses coming to the hospital … green-colored ‘PAZ’ automobiles, with their home windows coated with white fabric,” he mentioned.

Azarau, the top of ByPol, mentioned that the Republican Analysis Heart for Radiation Drugs and Human Ecology was used to deal with Russian servicemen who took half within the assault on the Chernobyl nuclear energy plant, a few of whom confirmed indicators of radiation poisoning. The hospital was initially constructed within the early Nineteen Nineties to supply specialised medical care to the native inhabitants affected by the Chernobyl catastrophe.

Mikalai mentioned it was no shock that the Belarusian and Russian authorities went to nice lengths to maintain the fact of what was occurring behind closed doorways in these hospitals a secret. “A large number of wounded younger troopers is a grimy, soiled stain that doesn’t correlate with the thought of this nice Russian invasion,” he mentioned, including that the authorities wished to offer the impression that the state of affairs was beneath management and experiences of an enormous variety of casualties had been pretend. “However that is the unhealthy fact … they tried to cover it.”

Unpicking the position that Belarus has performed within the Ukraine battle has taken on new urgency since Lukashenko introduced in October that Russian troopers would deploy to the nation to kind a brand new, “regional grouping” and perform joint workout routines with Belarusian troops, elevating fears that he would possibly draw the nation more directly into the conflict.

“The actual fact is that Belarus way back ceded its sovereignty in important methods to Russia,” State Division spokesperson Ned Worth mentioned in a briefing on October 12, responding to a query about Belarus’ posturing, which america is monitoring intently. “The truth that President Putin has been in a position to make use of what ought to be sovereign Belarusian territory as a staging floor, the truth that brutal assaults towards the individuals of Ukraine have emanated from a sovereign third nation, Belarus on this case, it’s one other testomony to the truth that the Lukashenko regime doesn’t have the most effective pursuits of its individuals at coronary heart.”

Not solely has Russia infringed on Belarus’ sovereignty, it has additionally posed a critical problem to NATO — three members of the alliance share a border with Belarus. Putin has been laying the groundwork to remodel Belarus right into a vassal state for a while. After a rigged presidential election in 2020 cemented Lukashenko’s lengthy reign, triggering widespread pro-democracy protests, he clung to energy with the assistance of Putin. Russia backed the ruthless crackdown on demonstrations, and gave Belarus a $1.5 billion lifeline to evade the brunt of sanctions, nevertheless it got here with strings hooked up. Beholden to the Kremlin, Lukashenko has supported Russia’s army actions from the sidelines, up to now avoiding sending his personal troops into the fray. However he could also be compelled to shift his place, as Putin racks up losses.

“So far as our participation within the particular army operation in Ukraine is worried, we’re collaborating in it. We don’t disguise it. However we aren’t killing anybody,” Lukashenko mentioned in early October. “We provide medical assist to individuals. We have handled individuals if needed,” he added.

Nonetheless, many in Belarus are terrified that may change. A majority of Belarusians don’t want their nation to participate within the battle, in line with a latest Chatham Home ballot carried out on-line, which discovered that solely 5% favored sending troops to assist Russia. Andrej Stryzhak, a Belarusian human rights activist and founding father of BySol, an initiative that helps victims of political persecution in Belarus, who himself faces politically motivated prices for “funding extremist formations,” mentioned that the group noticed a surge in requests for assist when the invasion began. The group arrange a Telegram channel with recommendation on methods to flee overseas, for individuals who don’t assist the battle or had been afraid of being mobilized themselves. “We took greater than 10,000 consultations … and now we now have a Telegram channel with 30,000 subscribers,” Stryzhak mentioned, including: “It’s very intensive work for us.”

Andrei reached out to BySol for assist getting in a foreign country, however in late August, with the borders to Ukraine and Russia largely impassible, they had been unable to help him. In the long run, he was aided by a casual community of Belarusian dissidents residing in exile in Lithuania, who determine potential crossing factors. They mentioned they too have seen a surge within the variety of Belarusian males fleeing for concern they are going to be forced to fight in Ukraine.