Sergei Budyukhin, a pensioner from Belarus who lives 30 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, says the conflict on the opposite side of the line never seems far away.
“I am afraid,” said the talkative 63-year-old on Lenin Avenue in Gomel, a town of half a million near where the borders of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia meet.
“I want peace,” the former electrician added, standing in the falling snow with the word “Belarus” proudly printed on the back of his jacket.
Budyukhin and others in Belarus are thinking about war and peace as Russia, Belarus’s partner, advances in Ukraine and as Donald Trump, the US president, promises to put an end to the three-year struggle.
Alexander Lukashenko, the dictatorial president of Belarus, is a devoted supporter of Vladimir Putin of Russia and is expected to win a new term in an uncontested election on Sunday.
Since 2022, Russia has used Gomel’s airport as a base from which to fire explosive drones in an attempt to strike Ukraine.
Budyukhin, who has a Belarusian father and a Russian mother, claimed to view Russians as his “brothers”. He declared that he was prepared “if needed, to take up arms” in spite of his anxieties.
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