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 worry.

When Russia launched its assault on Ukraine from Belarus’ southern doorstep, getting out instantly felt extra pressing. His household watched from the home windows of their condominium block as helicopters and missiles thundered by means of the sky. Inside days, Andrei — whose identify has been modified for his security — stated 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 fees. After his launch in Might, and thoroughly weighing the dangers, he determined it was time to depart.

In order to not spark any suspicion, Andrei requested one in every of 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 automobile. 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 select up their baggage. Then the household set off.

They stopped on a rural, filth highway and Andrei kissed his spouse and ladies goodbye. All being nicely, they’d cross by means of the official border checkpoint and reunite with him in Lithuania, the place he deliberate to assert asylum. Inside one in every of 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 gear and round 30,000 troops ostensibly for joint army workouts — the most important deployment to the previous Soviet state because the finish of the Chilly Warfare. Russia erected non permanent camps and hospitals in Belarus’ frozen fields, dispatching army {hardware}, artillery, helicopters and fighter jets close to the border.

When Putin declared his “particular army 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 meant 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 warfare that they didn’t join, unwittingly enlisted as quasi-combat medics and obliged by their hippocratic oath to offer life-saving care.

Many had been compelled to signal non-disclosure agreements, instructed not to discuss what they noticed. Some, like Andrei, later fled. From their working tables, Belarusian medical staff gained maybe the clearest sense of the size of casualties suffered by Russia within the early weeks of the warfare — describing younger, shell-shocked troopers who thought they had been being despatched for workouts solely to search out themselves dropping a limb in a warfare 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 stored 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 function Belarus performed in treating Russian casualties, whereas the Kremlin sought to hide them. Their testimonies and documentation — together with medical data — provide insights into the Belarusian authorities’s complicity within the Ukraine warfare, as fears mount that the nation could be 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 stated 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 lifeless considerably larger: between 3,000 and 10,000. Seven months into the warfare, Russian Protection Minister Sergei Shoigu revised the official tally, saying practically 6,000 Russian troopers had died. The Pentagon stated in August that it believed the true toll was far more: as many as 80,000 lifeless or wounded.

Belarus’ stranglehold on data — Lukashenko’s regime has put impartial information media beneath extreme strain, restricted free speech and launched new laws extending the demise penalty for “makes an attempt to hold out acts of terrorism” — has supplied helpful cowl for Russia in repressing particulars about its injured and lifeless. In latest months, various individuals have been arrested for filming Russian army autos, in keeping with Viasna, a Belarusian human rights group whose imprisoned founder was lately awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Despite the repressive setting, hints of Moscow’s troop losses have emerged on social media and native experiences. In late February, the Belarusian Hajun undertaking, an activist monitoring group that tracks army exercise within the nation, began sharing photos on Telegram of Russian medical autos 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 purple crosses and a white letter “V” — a logo believed to face for “Vostok”, or east — and armored ambulances in Gomel area.

“We are able to affirm 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 lifeless individuals or injured individuals, we’ve images of that,” Anton Motolko, a Belarusian blogger who fled Minsk in 2020 and based Belarusian Hajun undertaking, instructed CNN. Motolko stated 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 secure, and averted being exterior after darkish. Quickly they started to suspect that Russia was making ready for warfare. Because the army drills had been as a result of wrap up on February 20, Andrei stated his hospital administration prolonged a directive to deal with Russian troopers freed from cost till March 10. “They should have thought the warfare would finish by then,” Andrei stated, including that, two days later, Russian officers from the sphere hospital exterior Mazyr cleaned out town’s blood financial institution reserves.

On the morning of February 24, the primary day of preventing, Andrei recalled a hospital official gathering the entire 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 might residence. “Then they warned us that we weren’t allowed to share any details about Russian troopers. We needed to signal a non-disclosure type, forbidding us to share any images, paperwork,” Andrei stated. “They instructed us that we had been being watched by the Russian Federal Safety Providers (FSB), that that they had methods of monitoring our telephones.” Whereas he didn’t see any Russian FSB, Andrei stated 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 corporation 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 stated 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 private accountability 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, may have gotten me into authorized bother for espionage,” he stated, including that he had taken the danger to offer proof of a facet of the warfare that has thus far 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 outdated, capturing their accidents in stark black and white.

Andrei stated 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 stated.

In actuality, the hospital was filled with troopers, Andrei stated. 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 sporting 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 stated. “The Russians simply gave us their injured [soldiers], and didn’t give a rattling about them.”

Most of the Russians had been preventing 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 generally known as the “Purple Forest.” Andrei stated 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 stated. Russian Main Basic Sergei Nyrkov, who suffered a extreme belly damage in Chernobyl, was additionally handled at Mazyr hospital, in keeping 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 stated. 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” in opposition to 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 mistaken with that? Injured individuals have at all times obtained medical remedy throughout any warfare,” he stated, earlier than dismissing experiences that Russia had suffered enormous losses as pretend information.

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

However Andrei and different medical professionals within the area inform a special story. In early March, 40 to 50 Russian casualties had been dropped at Mazyr Metropolis Hospital day by day, shuttled out and in once more like a “conveyor belt,” Andrei stated. Most arrived at the hours of darkness of evening, or early within the morning, in inexperienced Russian army buses and ambulances. “We, the medical doctors on the hospital, thought that perhaps they had been apprehensive about safety, so that they introduced them beneath the quilt of the evening. They had been afraid of highway visitors to see the purple cross on their autos. Folks would know,” Andrei stated. The Russians additionally tried to carry the lifeless to the hospital, he stated, 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 had been flooded with the our bodies of lifeless Russian troopers. In April, Tsikhanouskaya met with members of the US State Division in Washington, DC, handing over proof of Lukashenko’s involvement within the warfare 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 warfare and April, however that there have been additionally “many circumstances 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 every of no less than three hospitals in Gomel area that handled Russian casualties, in keeping with medical and safety sources, who estimated that the services collectively cared for a whole lot of troopers. Mikalai, a health care provider who left the area and whose identify has additionally been modified for his security, stated that the Regional Scientific Hospital and the Republican Analysis Middle 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 warfare.

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

Azarau, the pinnacle of ByPol, stated that the Republican Analysis Middle 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 Nineties to offer specialised medical care to the native inhabitants affected by the Chernobyl catastrophe.

Mikalai stated it was no shock that the Belarusian and Russian authorities went to nice lengths to maintain the truth 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 concept of this nice Russian invasion,” he stated, including that the authorities needed to provide 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 reality … they tried to cover it.”

Unpicking the function that Belarus has performed within the Ukraine warfare has taken on new urgency since Lukashenko introduced in October that Russian troopers would deploy to the nation to type a brand new, “regional grouping” and perform joint workouts with Belarusian troops, elevating fears that he would possibly draw the nation extra straight into the battle.

“The actual fact is that Belarus way back ceded its sovereignty in important methods to Russia,” State Division spokesperson Ned Worth stated in a briefing on October 12, responding to a query about Belarus’ posturing, which the US is monitoring carefully. “The truth that President Putin has been ready to make use of what needs to be sovereign Belarusian territory as a staging floor, the truth that brutal assaults in opposition to 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 very best 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, but it surely got here with strings hooked up. Beholden to the Kremlin, Lukashenko has supported Russia’s army actions from the sidelines, thus far 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 anxious, we’re collaborating in it. We don’t conceal it. However we aren’t killing anybody,” Lukashenko stated in early October. “We provide medical assist to individuals. We have handled individuals if obligatory,” he added.

Nonetheless, many in Belarus are terrified that may change. A majority of Belarusians are not looking for their nation to participate within the warfare, in keeping with a latest Chatham Home ballot performed 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 fees for “funding extremist formations,” stated that the group noticed a surge in requests for assist when the invasion began. The group arrange a Telegram channel with recommendation on easy methods to flee overseas, for individuals who don’t assist the warfare or had been afraid of being mobilized themselves. “We took greater than 10,000 consultations … and now we’ve a Telegram channel with 30,000 subscribers,” Stryzhak stated, including: “It’s very intensive work for us.”

Andrei reached out to BySol for assist getting overseas, 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 establish potential crossing factors. They stated they too have seen a surge within the variety of Belarusian males fleeing for worry they are going to be compelled to battle in Ukraine.