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“If a colonel couldn’t do anything, what could I do?”: A Belarusian border guard’s confession
In the second half of 2021, a systematic effort by the Belarusian government created a crisis on the EU’s eastern border: the authorities in Minsk began bringing would-be migrants into Belarus, then transporting them to the frontier with Poland and the Baltic states. Although Russia’s subsequent full-scale invasion of Ukraine drew attention away from the manufactured problem, the situation has only gotten worse. In 2024 alone, 17,000 people entered the EU illegally through Belarus — three times more than in the year before. Refugees are undeterred by the physical obstacles — metal fences topped with barbed wire — which Lithuania and Poland erected in 2022 (with Latvia planning to finish its own by the end of this year). Numerous accounts have been collected showing that Belarusian border guards themselves transported migrants all the way up to the barriers, and when a similar crisis broke out on the Russian-Finnish border in 2023, The Insider found that Russia’s FSB had played the leading role in creating that copycat scheme. Now, a former Belarusian border guard tells The Insider how he escorted migrants to the border, while an Iranian refugee described how he managed to cross into the EU in 2023 with the help of the Belarusian authorities.
Contents- 1.“We pointed and said: “Europe“, “Germany“, “Merkel.“ Neither we nor they knew English.”
- 2.“They warned us: if you go back to Belarus, they’ll beat you up”
“We pointed and said: “Europe“, “Germany“, “Merkel.“ Neither we nor they knew English.”
A., former conscript of the Belarusian Border Service
In 2019, I finished school and wanted to enroll at a university. But my scores weren’t high enough for admission anywhere. I tried to avoid military service, got into a college, studied for half a year, and dropped out. I decided it would be better to go to the army and get it over with — I didn’t want to run and hide until I turned 27. I went to the draft office myself and said I wanted to serve. The medical exam was completely pointless: I had back pain, but the doctor just asked me to twist a little and then stamped me as fit. I was assigned the highest fitness category. They sent me to the border guards. At the time, I had no idea what that service was or what it involved — I just accepted that I had to serve for a year and a half.
A., former conscript of the Belarusian Border Service
Training lasted two months. We lived in complete isolation (it was during the pandemic, so we wore masks). We studied tracking — for example, how to determine the direction of movement from footprints, along with the person’s gender and how long ago they had passed through the area. We also worked with dogs.
In addition to the general regulations, we were bound by a separate set of instructions signed by Alexander Lukashenko. For instance, it said that upon spotting a suspicious person in the border zone, we had to fire two warning shots into the air and a third directly at the person. At the end, there was a list of prohibitions and the punishments for breaking them. You constantly felt you could end up in prison for the smallest infraction. You could be punished even for stepping away to use the toilet or slightly straying from the route.
Upon spotting a suspicious person in the border zone, we had to fire two shots into the air and a third directly at them
If someone broke the rules, they could be punished with an extra special shift — standing on the guard platform for 24 hours at attention and saluting every officer who passed by. You were relieved only twice a day: once for lunch and once if you needed to use the toilet. I had to do this every couple of months. I often asked to go to the toilet just to sit for a bit and give my legs a rest. Afterward, my legs would barely work.
After a year, I was granted leave and went home, where I started noticing strange news reports. At first, I didn’t believe them. For example, I read that Belarusian border guards on the Lithuanian section — where I had served — were moving migrants from the Middle East, Afghanistan, and other countries into Europe. I couldn’t even imagine such a thing — I knew that doing so could land you in prison.
Lithuanian border guards on the frontier with Belarus
I returned to service after leave, and everything seemed normal. But when we went to bed, I asked my friend what was going on. He gave me a strange answer: “You’ll see later.” About five or ten minutes later, the alarm sounded. We quickly formed up on the first floor opposite the duty station. It was unusual that everyone was called out — normally in such cases only a rapid response team of five or six people would be deployed. They handed us weapons, full ammunition, sleeping bags, mats. That’s when I realized the news I had read while on leave was true — and now I was about to see it with my own eyes.
We were loaded into a huge shishiga — a GAZ-66 truck. It was dark and cramped inside. I didn’t know where we were being taken. It was night, and no one explained anything. They drove us to some clearing. There were soldiers from other detachments I had never seen before. Everyone was lined up, and the officers began shouting slogans about Lithuanian enemies and giving us instructions on how we would move migrants across the border into Lithuania.
The officers started shouting slogans about Lithuanian enemies and instructing us on how we would move migrants across the border into Lithuania
We had an initial meeting point where we waited for people, usually somewhere about 500–600 meters from the border — the locations kept changing. Over the radio, we were given the coordinates of where to wait. Most often small UAZ vehicles arrived, but sometimes it was entire buses. People in regular clothes would get out. We loaded them into our vehicle, drove them to the border strip, and pointed the way with gestures, saying a few words like “Europe,” “Germany,” “Merkel.” None of us really knew English, and most of them didn’t either.
In my UAZ I could take five people. At the same time, I felt extremely unsafe around them: what if someone had a knife? What if they decided to take my rifle? I didn’t sleep for three days. I would sometimes move 20–25 people in one night, while some of the other guys moved even more — it all depended on how quickly the next group was brought in. At first, this was done only at night — during the day, no one attempted it. It was important to us that the Lithuanians take as long as possible to figure out where the migrants were coming from. Besides, we didn’t drop them off right at the border itself, because the Lithuanians had drones and thermal imagers, and they would have definitely spotted us.
One evening, I saw Lukashenko on “Panorama,” the Belarusian propaganda TV program we often watched during service. He was shouting: “Show me those who are moving people across the border.” I sat there thinking — but that’s me, sitting right here. At that moment, I started thinking seriously about how often my president lies.
Lukashenko shouted from the TV screen: “Show me those who are moving people across the border.” And I thought — that’s me, sitting right here
Later, there were so many people that we were doing this day and night. We stopped checking civilians and vehicles — at that point, someone could have smuggled a bomb into a kindergarten or a school, or contraband worth a million dollars. It was clear that transporting migrants had become the state’s top priority.
I remember having a conversation with one migrant. He had a wife and two children. He told me he was from Afghanistan and had come because someone had promised him a better life in Germany. He sold his house, his land, his car, and spent all his savings to get here and buy a tent and warm clothes. I told him: “Back home, go back home.” And he answered: “No home” — meaning he had nowhere to return to and now would stay here for good.
After the Lithuanians reinforced the border, everything changed. We stopped driving migrants in UAZ vehicles the way we used to, because now they were coming back our way. On the Lithuanian side, they started doing the same thing as us — intercepting groups we had sent over and pushing them back. It became a difficult cat-and-mouse game: we tried to figure out where the Lithuanians were, and they tried to figure out where we were and in which direction we were sending people. It all turned into a serious humanitarian crisis, because so many people were stuck at the border at the same time. We kept moving closer to the border, and so did they. In the end, we were squeezing people into the same spot.
Once, in early autumn [2021], we met at a water canal that marked the state border itself. About 35–40 people were standing in the water. We wore balaclavas of different kinds — not because of the cold, but because the Lithuanian side had invited journalists, and we were ordered to hide our faces so it wouldn’t be visible that it was us. When the migrants tried to climb out of the water, we pushed them back. This went on for almost a full day.
We tried to take their children to warm them up — because the nights were freezing — but they refused. They were exhausted from being lied to — by us and by the Lithuanians, who also told them, “Europe is that way.” They were simply tired of being driven back and forth. Watching people freeze, especially children in T-shirts at five degrees Celsius, was psychologically very hard.
A couple of times we went to our unit commander and said: “Commander, we’re breaking every rule we were taught — the entire manual, all 300 pages of it.” Some of us had badges for detentions, which we used to take pride in. And then those same men would be pushing illegal migrants across the border, looking at their badges and thinking: “What was the point of all this?” The commander only pointed upward, saying the decisions were made from above. I didn’t want to start a mutiny or openly voice my position — if my commander, a colonel, couldn’t do anything, what could I do? I just decided to finish my service in silence.
I didn’t want to start a mutiny or openly voice my position — if my commander, a colonel, couldn’t do anything, what could I do?
I finished my service without incident. But before discharge, there was an episode with the KGB when I was going through all the formalities. I was sitting and waiting when an officer came out — just an ordinary lieutenant who oversaw our group. He focused most of all on the migration crisis, saying that I must never talk about it to anyone. He threatened that if I ever appeared in some Telegram channels, news reports, or anything like that, they would find me. He gave me a paper and told me to sign it. I signed and left.
I still haven’t come to terms with that story. I consider it the most shameful thing I ever did in the army. Now, four years later, at least I can talk about it calmly.
“They warned us: if you go back to Belarus, they’ll beat you up”
M., Iranian refugee
I was born and raised in a village in Iranian Kurdistan. As a child, I dreamed of becoming an engineer, but because of financial difficulties, I had to quit school. Marriage didn’t work out either. I started working early on the farm, taking care of horses.
M., Iranian refugee
The mass protests under the slogan “Woman. Life. Freedom” made me think about leaving Iran [the protests broke out after the killing of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini by the morality police in September 2022]. By the winter of 2023, when the demonstrations began to die down, I realized there was no way out. I had taken part in the rallies and was identified on surveillance cameras. Back in 2019, during the protests against rising gas prices, I had already been detained. That time I went through arrest and torture, and I didn’t want it to happen again. I understood that I couldn’t go back to my family in the village — I was once again under the threat of arrest.
I hid in other cities for several months until I understood I couldn’t live like that. Then a few of us decided to leave. A man we only knew by the nickname Hadji helped us. Through smugglers, he arranged fake passports and documents so we could fly to Russia. From there, we planned to drive to Belarus.
We landed in Moscow on July 9, 2023, at around 9:30 in the morning. At the airport we were met, put in a car, and taken to the Cosmos Hotel. I stayed there until about 8:30 in the evening, then a taxi was sent for us. The next day, at exactly 11:30 a.m., we arrived in Minsk at a place that had been rented for us.
It was a house full of people — a real ant colony. It had three floors: the organizers themselves, two or three people, lived on the first floor; on the second and third were all the others, including us, single men. Women and children were housed separately.
The owner of the house was an Iranian, but to be honest, he acted like a bandit. Each of us was forced to give him $200 “for buying supplies.” He left and later brought us sleeping bags, some food, one backpack, army boots, and a few small items. We even tried to get around paying, but what choice did we have? We didn’t know anyone, and we had nowhere else to stay. We had entered Belarus illegally.
In that house, we met other Iranians who had already tried to cross the border but failed. They had run out of food and were forced to return to Minsk, back to the same house. They told us: “It’s impossible to cross. We were badly beaten.” At first, we didn’t believe them, but when we tried to do it ourselves, we saw it was true.
On the fourth day, taxis came for us — small SUVs. Two people were put into each car. We were taken to the Belarusian-Polish border. There, guides — they called them “leaders” — were supposed to meet us and bring us to a camp with other migrants. But in the forest, several people came up to us — as if they had been waiting for us on purpose — and took our backpacks, everything of value we had. At the camp itself, there was almost no food. Sometimes I went three days without eating — only drinking water. You feel like a hostage of the smugglers. And it’s true — there’s nothing you can do. You’re in a foreign country, in a forest. Even if you wanted to run, you couldn’t.
You feel like a hostage to the smugglers: in a foreign country, lost in a forest
The camp site was called the “forbidden zone” — a strip of land just beyond the barbed wire on the Belarusian side. In one spot there were 60–70 people, mostly from Arab countries, but also Iran, India, Pakistan, and even South Africa. A full mix of nationalities.
One day a few Belarusian soldiers came, detained us, and took us to another place. We thought they would torture or abuse us, but instead they just searched us and left us until evening. Later they drove us and dropped us off somewhere near the border. The border was divided into sections — each with its own number. They took us to a sector marked 330 and told us: “From here, go through the forest to your designated spot.”
So we set off through the forest ourselves, looking for the right landmark. They had given us wire and a metal rod to get through the fence. But they warned us: if you come back into Belarus, they’ll beat you up. And it was true — if someone was caught returning, they were beaten mercilessly.
We made several attempts to cross the border, but each time, as soon as we made it across, Polish border guards caught us, beat us up, and pushed us back behind the wire. We called it “the game.” After one such “game,” in the neutral zone, one of our friends was beaten so badly he couldn’t sit. We massaged him, tried to warm him up as best we could. He suffered for several days. The bruises and hematomas were so severe it looked like he had been tortured by Iranian security forces.
When the Polish border guards caught us again, they took all our belongings — our jackets and boots — loaded us into a truck, drove us to the border, and pushed us back into Belarus. We wandered barefoot through the forest all night — without jackets, shivering from the cold. Another time we were spotted because of a newcomer with an iPhone.
We had told him: “Don’t ever turn on the iPhone — it can be easily tracked.” But he didn’t listen and switched it on. The Poles immediately arrived and surrounded us. I was wearing a poncho because it was raining. They said, “Take it off!” — thinking I was a woman. I took it off. Then they sprayed gas in my face. They put handcuffs on me, led me aside, and gave me some water. That night, they once again pushed us back behind the barbed wire into Belarus.
Finally, we managed to cross the border. It was morning, around 3:30 a.m. The fence had already been cut and a passage was opened. We went through, but border guards appeared again. We hid and waited for several hours — until 9 a.m., until it became quiet. By evening, we reached the point where a taxi was supposed to meet us. We had contact with the driver via the internet. We got in, drove off, and by around 4 p.m. we were in Germany.
It was a border town — one part in Poland, the other in Germany. We came out on the German side. The driver said: “This is Frankfurt (Oder).” Then German police approached, detained us, and took us to a station. That’s how my life in Germany began.
I applied for asylum and received a rejection a year later. I was very disappointed. It was incredibly frustrating after everything I had been through. My case is now with a lawyer, and we have filed an appeal. Two years have passed, and I’m still living in a refugee camp. I haven’t been moved elsewhere, and nothing in my life has improved. Everything is stuck. I don’t know what I’ll do if they decide to deport me.
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