In a region where war has rewritten the rules of masculinity, real courage now means refusing to kill, refusing to be killed, and refusing to surrender one’s conscience.
Across Eastern Europe, the war in Ukraine has revived a brutal metric of heroism: a man becomes a “hero” only by taking a life or losing his own. Masculinity is being measured through violence, obedience, and sacrifice. Those who reject this logic—men who refuse militarization, reject participation in war, and decline to carry weapons—are treated as pariahs. Conscientious objectors and deserters are stigmatized, criminalized, and pushed to the margins of every society in the region.
Belarusian and Russian men who adopt an open anti-war stance face a double punishment. Their position is rooted in democratic values, peace ethics, and the rejection of violence as a political tool. Yet when they refuse military service, reject weapons, or refuse to support the war, they become targets everywhere: prosecuted at home and obstructed abroad. In Belarus and Russia, they face prison, torture, forced mobilization, and a system designed to break their resistance—restrictions on work, surveillance, criminal charges for draft avoidance, and even the impossibility of marriage without military documents. Their lives are controlled down to their place of residence.
Inside the European Union, including Lithuania, these same men are frequently labeled “national security threats” based on irrational or unfounded assessments. As a result, Lithuania and several other EU countries carry out detention, deportation, and forced returns—measures that, in practice, assist Russia and Belarus in pushing these men back toward military structures and the front line. The effect is geopolitical: Europe’s asylum and migration practices reinforce the very militarization these men resist.
The Peace Hero Calendar exists to make these realities impossible to ignore. It presents twelve real stories of men from Belarus and Russia who chose conscience over violence. They refused weapons, refused participation in war, refused to be instruments of militarized power. Their photographs and testimonies document a different form of heroism—one grounded in dignity, responsibility, and nonviolence.
Proceeds from the calendar directly support legal defense, emergency assistance, and shelter for conscientious objectors in Lithuania and other EU countries. Every contribution strengthens protection for those resisting militarization at enormous personal risk.
Price: €24.99 + €5 shipping. Funds go exclusively to legal aid, safe housing, and urgent protection.
Dissemination across all networks is essential.
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