The Belarusian GuardService private security company, which was granted permission by Alexander Lukashenko to own firearms, may be preparing to participate in combat operations.

Valery Sakhashchyk, a representative of Svitlana Tykhanovska’s United Transitional Cabinet for Defense and National Security, commented on this to Deutsche Welle.

According to him, this Belarusian private security company has increased the number of its employees several times now. He suggests that there may be more than a thousand of them at the moment.

“Preparation and recruitment have been going on for several months. The staff was increased by officers, ensigns, sergeants and soldiers who had served in the forces of special operations and in special units of the law enforcement agencies of Belarus,” Valery Sakhashchyk says.

He believes that the personnel of GuardService are being prepared to participate in combat operations, therefore the training of employees is carried out at several Belarusian training grounds.

“I know that the officers of the 5th Spetsnaz Brigade (based in Marjina Horka, Minsk region – Ed.) are training the employees of GuardService at their training ground. Moreover, the company has taken over the base of the former Dynamo special training center, and it has been actively used lately,” Sakhashchyk notes.

The DW source believes that employees of GuardService may be used as part of sabotage and reconnaissance groups, as well as for assaults.

Sakhashchyk also assures that Putin has invested a “very serious sum” in this Belarusian private security company and is creating a “Belarusian analogue of Wagner PMC”.

The German publication recalled that in the summer of 2022, information appeared in the media from an anonymous employee of GuardService, claiming that mercenaries from the Wagner PMC had arrived in Minsk to train employees of a private security company at the end of July-August.

It was noted that GardService had about half a thousand employees at that time and that, according to rumors, employees were promised business trips and a salary of about €3,700 in future.

The GuardService private security company appeared in Belarus in June 2020. At the same time, Lukashenko by personal decree allowed its employees to carry, store and use both service and civilian weapons, as well as special means and apply physical force.

The company was allocated a special training center, where special forces from Belarus and other countries had previously trained. In 2021, the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs released lists of weapons belonging to GuardService. These were, in particular, assault and sniper rifles, and pistols.