‘Deadly force used’
Novaya Gazeta Europe covered the rail war and why it was the second one back in April 2022 — immediately after the people who had disabled signal control cabinets and put logs on railway tracks were arrested. A short reminder about the name — actions of Belarusian partisans in the occupied territories during the Second World War are referred to as the “first rail war”. Partisans purposefully damaged railway tracks and derailed German trains with equipment, weapons, and ammunition.
On 10 February, the last group of partisans who were arrested by Belarusian law enforcement agents in March 2022 got sentenced.
Vladimir Avramtsev and Dmitry Klimov were sentenced to 22 years behind bars each on charges of committing an “act of terrorism”, “high treason”, “participating in an organisation created for terrorism purposes”, and “deliberate disablement of transport means or communication lines”. Together with them, Yevgeny Minkevich was on trial for failing to report a crime. He was sentenced to 1.5 years in a penal colony, however, amnesty and the time he spent in a pre-trial facility led to his term being considered served. The court issued a ruling for the case with such grave charges in camera over the course of just two weeks.
Because of Avramtsev and Klimov, even those who use TV as their only source of news found out about the rail war.
Both men were arrested on 30 March 2022 in a demonstratively public way, with Belarus’ KGB and Special Response Team cooperating on the arrest. The law enforcement even reported the use of “deadly force weapons”. At least, that is what the deputy interior minister said: “The terrorists actively resisted [arrest], deadly force weapons were used”.
The video of the arrest shows that both Avramtsev and Klimov are injured (they were shot in the kneecaps). Avramtsev can barely talk, he is having trouble breathing.
Vladimir Avramtsev is a 28-year-old athlete and master of sports, as well as a former member of the Belarusian national Greco-Roman wrestling team. He worked as a fitness trainer.
Dmitry Klimov is a year older than Avramtsev. It is known that a year before his arrest, he became a regional manager of a taxi service in the city of Hrodna.
Yevgeny Minkevich, as newspaper Evening Babruysk reported at the beginning of 2020, worked as a driver. In January 2020, he married a woman named Yana, and a local newspaper named them newlyweds of the week. For some time, nothing was known about the circumstances of Yevgeny’s arrest, so the search and rescue team Phoenix even reported him missing. Minkevich, by the way, did not take part in Avramtsev and Klimov’s partisan raid, so one could say that he got lucky — he was only charged with failure to report a crime.
According to the prosecution, the two men set two signal control cabinets on fire at the Asipovichy-Vyeraytsy railway section in the Mahilyow region of Belarus in the early hours of 22 March 2022. Judging by the Emergency Services bulletin, the equipment was damaged, however, it did not lead to delays in train traffic. Thus, the 22-year sentence given to Avramtsev and Klimov is more than likely law enforcement publicly putting an end to the second rail war. It is known that the thing that happens last is always the most memorable. So, the last defendants get the scariest sentences.