Listening to Roaring Skies
Russian strikes on Ukraine, their scale and intensity shocked many Belarusians, not only those who weren’t following the news, but also those who saw the war coming. As many others, I was disgusted and outraged by the fact that Belarus, formerly often advertised as a “donor of stability in Europe” (BelTA 2015), became an accomplice of this aggression, and our territory, military and civilian infrastructure were used for airstrikes and an invasion over land. In fact, the Russian military had arrived to Belarus for weeks by then, allegedly for a joint Russian-Belarusian military exercise. Such exercises were regular and always caused anxiety – “will the Russians leave after the exercise?” – but the number of military equipment and troops was unusually high this time.
Many residents of the south of the country heard the war – and its preparations – before they read about it in the news (Zerkalo 2022a). Propagandists and “ordinary citizens” used by the state to advertise the upcoming constitutional referendum, repeatedly and proudly mentioned “our peaceful skies” as the key factor distinguishing Belarus from the “world in turmoil”, especially Ukraine. But for many others, the sky over their country was not peaceful anymore: it rumbled with fighters, strategic bombers, and military cargo planes; it was chopped by helicopters and pierced by missiles often launched close to the cities Luniniec and Mazyr. This was all the more scary, considered that the sky was almost completely quiet for months due to the air blockade introduced after the Ryanair flight hijacking in May 2021. N., a woman from Mazyr, remembers:
When the war started, it was very scary, because there were military bases near us, from which missiles were launched. It resembled a muffled rumble, like a thunder. It lasted for about three weeks. Military airplanes were flying above the houses – so low that we could see their shells (*missiles? - P.N.). And in the evening they flew back even lower – and empty. All this was accompanied by characteristic noises. Then, after some time, other kinds of planes – or whatever – began flying, the supersonic ones. When they reach a certain altitude, they emit a very specific deafening sound with vibrations [rolling] over the ground.[35] In one such moment [my daughter] was in a car, and it shuddered. And once, before going to sleep we heard some sound that was growing louder and getting closer to our house (so it seemed). In the end there was such a maddening roar that we hid under our beds. In short, the sounds of war were everywhere and every day here [...] till May. Then it became quieter.[36]
Because of the constant noise and military presence, her family decided to leave the city and went to a village. However, “explosions and helicopters were heard even louder in the village. But there were no soldiers there.” Another woman, A., describes the soundscape of Homiel:[37]
I won't forget these horrible sounds. Since February it was a sonic hell. [...] And these were not even explosions. It was horrifying. I can't imagine how people could live among the sounds of exploding shells. [...] My acquaintances who live in Dobruš[38] even heard explosions in the beginning of the war – on that side, the Ukrainian one. Sounds of airplanes lifting off at night, sometimes every half an hour […] Sometimes you would stand in the street talking to someone, and suddenly this sound came. You lift your head and you see a plane. And you couldn't continue the conversation in the same way. This sound pressed on your psyche, because your imagination, naturally, immediately drew [a picture] where it was flying to and why. […] When I heard the plane sounds, I would often imagine a man, a pilot sitting in that plane. Now he looks down, crossing the Ukrainian border. And he's going to kill. And I used to think: What kind of person is he? What does his face look like? What eyes does he have? And in general, how will he ... fly back and come back to his family?[39]
Along with the aircraft noises, the sounds of trucks and armored vehicles convoys, and trains transporting military machinery and materiel were also disturbing:
I live not very far from the railway. And one night I came out of my house and there was such a sound that I got scared. [...] It seemed as if the whole space vibrated with such an iron [sounding] drone. Well, it didn't seem that the sound was caused by some metal, but the space itself vibrated. It seemed like some apocalypse would happen now. As I live in the outskirts of the city – with a meadow and trees around, a wide open space – sound propagates differently that in the city. I couldn't identify the source of the sound. A few days earlier my friend told me that he saw trains with heavy [military] machinery, tanks – on the railroad, near the railway station. I then wrote him and asked: ‘This sound, the horrible one, is it from those trains?' He said, ‘yes that's it.’ I've never heard such a sound anymore, but it was really scary. [...] When you go out and hear a sound and you don't understand what it is, where it comes from, what's happening at all – for you it's something inexplicable. […] And it was going [like this] until the troops drew back.[40] [...] Then the planes ceased [to be heard]. And then, suddenly, it felt that the background [level] of anxiety lowered. And I realized that I just didn’t hear airplanes. And even unconsciously, on a subliminal level, it was a signal that it was not so scary there now.[41]
Since February 2022 people all over Belarus, especially in the south, have been watching and listening to the sky – learning to identify aircraft types and flight directions. They photographed troops and military machinery on the roads, missiles launched from airplanes or from the ground, and they passed this data on to Hajun, a Telegram channel monitoring the Russian and Belarusian military activities. The channel was full of brief messages, each containing emojis of an aircraft or a rocket with a short text: time, location, sound description, and an approximate type of the aircraft or missile. Widely read by Ukrainians, this channel contained thousands of comments about missile launches or approaching airplanes, thereby giving residents of the regions adjacent to Belarus some valuable time to hide in bomb shelters or basements. The comments section is closed since mid-2022 due to rude comments, trolling, and disinformation aimed at raising hostility between Belarusians and Ukrainians.
Created by the team of a well-known Belarusian blogger Anton Motolko, who used to write about urbanism before 2020, this channel started operating right before the invasion, on 20 February 2022, when it became clear that a full-scale war was imminent. It was deemed an “extremist resource” and any person subscribed to the channel, sharing information with it or sharing its publications, was considered a “member of an extremist formation.” Many people who submitted photos, videos, maps, and data to Hajun were identified by security services and jailed. By November 2022, in the Homiel region alone, twelve people were sentenced for this, including Aleh Khramykh, a 38-year old Red Cross volunteer who was sentenced for three and a half years of imprisonment in a strict regime colony. In an article reporting how he, allegedly, “leaked information to the extremists”, the state-owned newspaper Gomelskaya Pravda (Homiel Truth) warned its readers to not send such information to anyone: “If you hear planes taking off, don’t write anywhere” (Gremeshkevich 2022). It meant that what happened in the “peaceful skies” over Belarusians’ heads was not for their eyes, ears, and minds. A “repentance video” embedded in the article, shows a weary man confessing that he didn’t imagine his actions were illegal and that he “informed not peaceful Ukrainians but spies” and thus “endangered his city and its people”, because the enemy could strike on Homiel. This video is just another evidence of how people are broken by the special services and forced to betray themselves.
Information gathered and shared by people like Aleh Khramykh, whose actions stay largely unknown abroad, enrages Belarusian and Russian forces. Trying to minimize chances of identifying the location, direction, and specific details of missile launches, Russia often used bombers entering Belarusian airspace in the East, then launching missiles right before the Ukrainian border, staying out of reach of anti-aircraft missiles, and safely returning to their home bases in the West of Russia without landing in Belarus. The Hajun channel estimated that at least 717 missiles were launched from Belarusian territory and airspace by 6 October 2022.
Recording from a concert for elderly people near the Kijeŭ cinema on 25 June 2022. In the song “My Soviet Friends”, Anatoly Dlusski nostalgically praises the “peaceful internationalism” of the USSR. A few hours earlier, Russian bombers had launched dozens of missiles on Ukraine from the Belarusian airspace.
There were no more missile strikes from Belarus, but Russian kamikaze drones – Geran, better known under their original Iranian name Shahed – enter the Belarusian airspace more frequently. There were more than a hundred incidents since 1 July 2024 (Naša Niva 2024c). It is not known, how many of them were launched towards Ukraine but lost their way due to Ukrainian radio jamming and spoofing or whether some of them were deliberately launched by Russia towards Belarus. Most of the drones get lost somewhere in Belarus or later turn towards the Ukrainian airspace; some cross the whole country even reaching Latvia in the north. Others explode or are intercepted by the Belarusian air forces. The state rarely comments on these incidents and bans people from spreading information about them. A woman in Kalinkavičy was arrested by armed KGB and SOBR (Special Rapid Response Unit) officers, because a security camera on her house recorded a drone fly-by and explosion (Euroradio 2024). Residents of southern Belarus, who now often hear drone noise and describe it as "a motorcycle riding in the sky" (Korneevet͡s 2024), are trying to ignore the noise and the danger it signifies.
The armed forces of Belarus and Ukraine have not been directly fighting each other, but they continue to reinforce protective measures and structures at the border, demonstrating their combat readiness. Both sides accuse each other in reconnaissance and provocations and use various media (billboards, screens, “art installations”) set at border checkpoints to exchange hostile messages. In May-June 2023 there was a surreal audio duel between Belarusian and Ukrainian border guards: the Belarusian side aired a recording of a woman speaking in Ukrainian about borsht, a dish that is a part of both nations' traditional cuisine, then Ukrainians answered in Belarusian adding Angy Kreyda’s song about a witch cursing the enemy. The Belarusian military responded with more propaganda in Ukrainian language, this time about vodka (harełka/horilka), bread, and lard cherished by both nations.
Since the start of the full scale invasion, Ukrainians demanded more visible and louder actions from Belarusians, and the question looming over many heated online-discussions was “why are the Belarusians silent?” By the autumn of 2022, such discussions on social media platforms devolved into a ritualistic exchange of hate speech, accusations, and explanations, In fact, Belarusians were not silent and passive; they listened and watched, and collected information about enemy troops. Some were – and still are – damaging railway infrastructure in Belarus and even in the Russian Far East to thwart transportation of military cargo. But large-scale, internationally visible and audible anti-war protests were no longer possible or reasonable.
By 2022 the resistance movement in Belarus entered a survival mode to spare resources and, most importantly, its people. An arrest of yet another activist could compromise whole underground cells and networks that this person was part of. Widespread use of unlawful and harsh interrogation methods, psychological, and physical violence leads to forced confessions and the uncovering of other activists. This depletes the resistance potential and the readiness to act. In the context of war, the stakes for Belarusians became much higher, and the pro-independence movement understands that people and the already scarce resources will be needed at an appropriate moment – for a wider resistance in case the war would escalate and a deeper “integration”/occupation of Belarus would become realistic.
Nevertheless, since the first day of the full-scale Russian invasion, Belarusians protested against the war.[42] Police terror, changes in criminal legislation, as well as emigration of many activists, made city-wide protests too dangerous, so the anti-war resistance and protests now consist mainly of individual or small groups’ actions, including monitoring transportation of troops and sabotaging the railway infrastructure. Even “innocuous” forms of a protest, such as posters, graffiti, wearing “Ukrainian colors” (blue and yellow), bringing flowers to the Ukrainian embassy, anti-war posts, comments and emojis on social media platforms have been persecuted, not just by 10-15 days of administrative arrest but often by criminal sentences.
Announcement in a trolleybus inviting to vote at a referendum. Minsk, 21.02.2022
Surprisingly for many Belarusians, on 27 February 2022 there were thousands of protesters in the streets of Minsk and other cities again. It was the main day of voting at the constitutional referendum and, using this legal possibility to gather, people stood near polling stations expressing their protest against Belarus’ participation in the Russian aggression. After a year without mass demonstrations, it was very hard to find the courage and to coordinate the protest. Nevertheless, like in 2020, many groups of 50-100 people formed small columns and tried to reach the city center where they could merge. However, they were mostly intercepted and dissected by OMON on their way there.
At least one group went to the Russian embassy guarded by armed men. The approaching milicyja vans and minibuses forced them to change direction and to go to the Ukrainian embassy instead, bringing flowers and blue-yellow ribbons to its gate. A sizable crowd later gathered near the Defense Ministry General Staff HQ. Cars were honking and people shouted “No to war!” and sang “Kupalinka” on the streets again, remembering the suppressed feelings of unity, solidarity, and “being on the right side” (Euroradio 2022a; Reform 2022). It was exhilarating to see that, despite the fear, so many people gathered and voiced their protest against the war. There are not that many media evidences of these protests as after a year and a half of repressions there were very few independent journalists left in the country, and people were cautious about posting photos and videos or sending them to the media; the special services keep identifying people on photos and videos so people seriously reviewed their security vs. visibility priorities.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya claimed that about 70,000 Belarusians took part in the anti-war protests on February 27 (Radyjo Svaboda 2022a). It is impossible to verify this number, but the number of detained people reflects the scale of the protest. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, about 800 people were detained on that day. Human rights initiatives say that more than 1100 people were detained on 27-28 February (Viasna 2023a). This protest might seem futile, but, as my colleague said, it “has probably saved many lives of Belarusians staying in Ukraine”, as it showed that they were not only against this war and for an “abstract” peace, they were on Ukraine’s side. There were other protest actions: individual pickets, Ukrainian flags hoisted in hard-to-access locations, laying of flowers, etc. On March 3, an attempted “prayer of mothers for peace” in the Minsk Orthodox Cathedral was disrupted and the participants detained. On June 28, a poster with “Don’t be silent about the war” was put at the monument to Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko.
Screenshots from the @Hajun_BY Telegram channel with information about sounds of Russian military aircraft, missile launches, and explosions heard in the south of Belarus near the border with Ukraine (24-25.08.2022).
