The Lavragerian War

The Birth Of The Lavragerian Republic

In the former Belarus a curious and alien society managed to survive in varying degrees of isolation ever since the days of the great Glakatahn invasions across Europe during the Dark Ages. While dominated by a tribal hierarchy and populated by a largely nomadic people, at varying times and with varying degrees of success some of those nomads organized themselves into towns and fixed settlements.

In the last days of the post-Gorbachev USSR, one of these movements towards settlement took place. A group of Lavragerians, aided by weaponry presumably smuggled from Russia, holed themselves up in several cities and attempted to defy the nomadic clans, under the rule of Kiba Morgan. In a surprise move, Russia sent in a gigantic amount of troops to aid the urbanizing Lavragerians and crushed the Glakatahn tribesmen with massive force. Tanks and attack helicopters were able to dispatch bands of tribesmen on horseback, armed only with Kalashnikovs and the occasional RPG-7, quite handily.

In another unprecedented move, Russian advisors tried to establish a functioning Democracy in the new Lavrageria, organizing a Presidential election in short order. Perhaps it was too short a time frame from doing away with centuries-old Tribal hierarchical structures to establishing a western democracy, because inevitably the most charismatic and powerful of the new candidates won.

This man was named Larionko Aidarov.

Although he proclaimed himself president-for-life shortly after being elected out of a haphazardly-assembled collection of candidates, Aidarov showed no small interest in improving Lavrageria, and towards these ends he began a number of development projects, acquired modern military equipment, and tried quite hard to stamp out the Glakatahn warrior clans as a military force in Lavrageria.

These developments greatly worried monarchical Estenlands to the nation's south, where a Tsar with a burning hatred for Russia held absolute authority over one of the largest militaries on the continent. However, with what was at least a theoretically strong Russia still relatively stable and quite willing to defend its new ally, the Tsar, Wingert I, knew that any war was a gamble too risky to make.

Then came the rise of Putin.

Troubles In Russia

Up for election not long after the Lavragerian affair was the Russian Premier. In a move unanticipated by anyone, he decided not to rig the elections as usual, and was soundly defeated by a capitalist movement led by the young, charismatic Vladimir Putin. While the USSR government had opted to accomodate the terribly powerful and influential Russian Mafia, Putin began his program of stamping-out corruption at all levels of government and essentially declared war on organized crime.

War was what Putin got. All the while, the Estenlands and Tsar Wingert's newfound ally, restored-monarchist France, were building up their own forces to launch a punitive invasion of Lavrageria. Ostensibly, it was a security operation, raising a bulwark against the raids launched into the Estenlands by the now-displaced Glakatahn warriors. In reality, attempts had even been made to bring the Glakatahn into the Estenland's cause, and while unsuccessful, the invasion was more the start of a long campaign against democratic progress launched by The Estenlands and France.

The First Skirmishes

The French deployed their crack troops to help Tsar Wingert's planned invasion of Lavrageria, and while they would later prove themselves quite effective soldiers they were initially quite trigger-happy. Their commander, the French Dauphin, authorized the elite Mirage-2000 wing Ordu de Saint-Espirit to launch a sortie into Lavragerian airspace. It went quite a bit worse than planned, when one Mirage was blown to bits and another heavily damaged by superb Lavragerian marksmanship -second nature to once nomadic huntsmen- with a light AAA gun.

Ordu de Saint-Espirit launched a retaliatory strike, bombing an anti-aircraft unit of the Lavragerian Republic's young army, and preparations for war on both sides of the border continued in earnest.

Attempts to bring the Glakatahn under the Estenlander/French banner had fallen flat on their face, the fiercely independent tribesmen refusing to accept either Adirov or Wingert's authority. On the subject of the Estenlands, one minor Glakatahn Kiba, Foktar of the Tunn clan, said:

"They know nothing of our ways or our means, half the battle is lost for them already, they can not take our lands. We will eat your children!"

It was then reported that Foktar displayed the severed head of a supposed Estenlands operative to the news cameras present, the man's brain removed and eaten in ritualistic fashion.

But as both sides considered their options, it became clear that, with Russia caught up in considerable domestic strife, which would only grow as the Lavragerian War progressed, Adirov's new government at the capital Ulanger could really only expect to wage a guerilla war for any sustained period of time.

In the final weeks before the invasion, Lavrageria was innundated by foreign advisors and mercenaries, as well as Russian arms. A squadron of Russian MiG-29 fighter jets was flown in on Putin's orders, and the Choson People's Republic of Dra-pol, surprisingly enough, contributed a sizable force of MiG-21s. Foreign Service advisors arrived from Hindustan along with modified Li-2 and An-14 transport planes and considerable quantities of arms.

Another large mercenary presence was commanded by the famed Strathdonian soldier of fortune Derek Morgan, who brought twenty mercenaries to help train and reinforce the Lavragerians with modern weaponry and tactics.

The Invasion

The inevitable finally arrived over Lavrageria at night in early January. A strike wave of nearly 500 Estenlandic aircraft took off from their airbases and crossed into Lavrageria. At the same time, French ships in the Black Sea launched a massive cruise missile strike, aimed at several Lavragerian cities, and concentrated on the capital Ulanger. By that time, Adirov's government had evacuated the city for the relative safety of the countryside. Itageria was levelled, and little was left after the first day. The other Lavragerian cities also took major damage.

As the Estenlandic and French air wing spread across Lavragerian skies, Lavragerian troops fired at them with their MANPADs and light AAA guns while the handful of Lavragerian, Russian, and Drapoel fighters were scrambled. All in all, Lavrageria could summon some 100 combat aircraft to its defense, the bulk of them Russian MiG-29 and Su-27 squadrons rushed into the country days before the invasion. the Lavragerian Air Force itself could boast around twelve MiG-23s, armed with AA-10 AAMs, and perhaps twice as many light aircraft such as Zlin elementary trainers and Aero L-29 Delfin armed traniers. The Drapoel Air Force had around 24 aircraft in the country, although records of their involvement do not officially exist and it is therefore quite difficult to discern to just what extent Drapoel pilots participated in the fighting.

A great many of these aircraft were destroyed on the ground, but at cities further north interceptors rocketed off the runways and up to wage a hopeless struggle against the overwhelming Estenlandic odds. One pilot, Lieutenant Gutin, was the only Lavragerian to fly a sortie in the southern portion of the country. His L-29 took off from Itageria and was never seen again.

Fierce air battles raged over the Lavragerian countryside, with Drapoel, Russian, and Lavragerian pilots taking a miraculous bite out of the Estenlandic attack wing disproportionate to their numbers. Despite their heroic actions, there was only so much that could be done, and by morning the Lavragerian Air Force could only boast a few An-2s, An-14s, and Li-2s carefully hidden away in the woods.

Several hours later, the ground thrust is launched. As was the case in the air, the invaders meet unexpectedly heavy resistance, although not enough to make much of a dent in the tidal wave of armor coming across the border. With their antitank defenses limited to RPG-7s, AT-3 missiles, and a handful of MT-12 antitank guns, the Lavragerian troops brave or foolish enough to meet the Estenlands Army on the border are brushed aside by daybreak, save a few pockets of resistance which are taken care of shortly later.

By this time, Larionko Aidarov was aboard a Lavragerian Air Force Il-14, headed for the Russian border at extreme low level. Even then, the President was being chased by some one hundred Estenlandic aircraft, and came very close to being shot down before Russian air defenses rebuffed the pursuing aircraft.

The Estenlandic and French ground forces made lightning progress into Lavrageria, but by nightfall on day two it must have been clear that the Lavragerians were not riding out to meet them. The bulk of the Lavragerian army was, however, concentrated around the capital Ulanger, which would, as time would tell, not fall easily or quickly.

Russia In Turmoil

Tsar Wingert and King Louis XX of France took the opportunity presented by the Lavragerian invasion to launch a campaign against Putin's administration in Russia. Starting with a bloody riot in Red Square, organized by French intelligence officers, a civil war soon erupted, which pitted Putin's capitalist-republicans against Wingert-backed and funded Tsarists and a still sizeable Marxist element.

While the fighting with both the Tsarist and Marxist movements at home took up most of capitalist-Republican Russia's military resources, Vladimir Putin still found the money and time to support Adirov and the Lavragerian Partisans.

The Advance Bogs Down

After their initial successes in crossing the border, the Estenlandic/French force met the greatest obstacle it would have to face; the Pripet Marshes. These gigantic swamps were crawling with Lavragerian and foreign troops, pushed north from the border areas, as well as equally warlike civillians fleeing from the burning cities. The invaders had to pass through these marshes in order to attack the rest of the country, and the Lavragerians knew it.

The highly experienced Lavragerian partisans (not experienced in conventional warfare whatsoever, but skilled and talented soldiers none the less and veterans of constant tribal conflict) took up antitank tactics quite quickly, and the Estenlandic advance through the marshes was slow, costly, and difficult. Lavragerians proved themselves masters of the terrain, able to organize ambushes of Estenlandic armor along the few roads that led through the Pripets. While Estenlands' Abrams tanks were tough nuts to crack, they were, like all armored vehicles, quite vulnerable to antitank mines and bags of C4 explosive buried under roads, and the AT-3 ATGW proved quite able to destoy an Abrams when fired at its rear arc. While it was ultimately a losing battle, the Lavragerians and their Strathdonian and Russian advisors conducted themselves with the utmost proffessionalism and effectiveness.

The Break-Out

While the advance through the Pripets was costly and difficult, and the roads were soon littered with burned-out and abandoned hulks of Estenlandic armored vehicles or the wreckage of attack helicopters brought-down by SA-16 and Blowpipe SAMs, Sir Reginald, the Sandhurst-educated commander of the Estenlandic military, had a way to deal with the problem. He ordered all Estenlandic units to withdraw to secure land and then had engineers pump gasoline into the marshes. After broadcasting news of the imminent attack, and ordering all civillians to leave the marshes within 24 hours, the Estenlandic forces set fire to the gasoline, now circulating throughout the marshes. A massive inferno was triggered, killing unknown numbers of Lavragerians and burning down uncounted hectares of woods and marshland. At the same time, the Estenlands launched its large bomber fleet in a carpet-bombing raid on the woods. While this hardly destroyed the Lavragerian Partisans, they did largely withdraw from the Pripet marshes and Estenlands armor soon broke through to the Pripet river, which was bridged by engineers. The first invaders crossed the river about midway through the second week of the invasion, and from that time onward the going was much easier for the invading forces.

In short order, Estenlandic armor had captured the border areas and was in a position to attack Itageria. That particular city fell relatively easy when compared to the later seiges conducted against the Lavragerians, but was still not a quick fight. A core of some four hundred Lavragerian Partisans holed up in the city's burned-out and destroyed interior, and despite carpet-bombing by Estenlandic aircraft they fought on, finally to be surrounded and destroyed.

"an airdrop of this size has not been attempted since Normandy..."

Sir Reginald decided on a decisive operation to destroy the largest concentrations of Lavragerian Troops and Partisans. It was indeed an insightful and imaginative operation, involving some 40,000 Estenlandic paratroops and the French Dauphin Corps, before that time held in reserve. The plan was to drop those paratroops in and around the small hamlet of Maladyzechna, some 60 kilometers up the road from Hia'Ikatchi, and surround the Lavragerian defenders of that particular town. Airstrips would be built on the secured land, and there the Dauphin Corps would land and provide the main thrust for the northern portion of the invasion.

The Estenlandic and French transport planes would, according to the plan, conduct some fourteen airdrops over a period of a little more than four days, landing 3,000 troops every eight hours. During the afternoon in eary February, a massive force of transport planes took off from bases in the Crimea, laden with the advance guard of paratroops.

The trip to Maladyzechna was far from easy. In getting there, the Estenlandic and French transport pilots had to overfly Hia'Itkachi and its extremely thick flak defenses. If the attack was launched at night, they might have been able to deploy the paratroops relatively unscathed, but for one reason or another the decision was made to go in during the daytime. The paradrop force first came under fire from a contingent of Russian Spetsnaz troops in the south of the country, and while their MANPADs and light AAA machine guns mostly lacked the range to attack the large transports, they did succeede in bringing down a number of fighters sent to attack their supposed positions.

Over Hia'Itkachi, the transport wing and its massive fighter umbrella took fire from Lavragerian 100mm flak cannons around the city. While their radar fire control had been largely destroyed, the Lavragerians manning the 100mm guns were, by and large, expert marksmen who knew how to lead a target, if inexperienced with such heavy weaponry. They brought down several transports, and the fighter cover was dispatched to engage and hopefully destroy the heavy antiaircraft guns. However, while doing this the Estenlandian aircraft exposed themselves to the Lavragerians' SA-16 and SA-18 missiles, as well as a veritable sea of light AAA guns. Although several gun batteries were destroyed or put out of action, the Estenlands lost a considerable amount of fighters and attack planes.

Once over Maladyzechna, the transports dropped their paratroops, opening the northern front of the Lavragerian invasion. As it happened, the small town was populated by Glakatahn tribesmen who had been convinced to urbanize, and was therefore defended by a well-armed, if small, garrison of Lavragerian Army troops. Upon seeing the parachutes, the Lavragerians reacted without hesitation and dispatched snipers into the surrounding territory while the troops in the town itself picked off descending paratroops unlucky enough to be dropped over the town proper with 7.62mm, 12.7mm, 14.5mm, and 23mm machine guns. More AAA teams were dispatched to other probable landing zones in order to counter the Estenlandic paratroops wherever they landed.

However, the Lavragerian troops in Maladyzechna numbered only in the hundreds, supported my several hundred more Partisans in the surrounding countryside. Despite the heavy losses doled out on the paratroops in the descent, and after some hard fighting and the loss of several thousand paratroops, the Estenlandic forces overwhelmed the Lavragerian defenders with superior numbers and firepower. Within a few days, Maladyzechna was overrun and Lavragerian activity in the northern sector was limited to Partisan operations.

The Push On Hia'Itkachi

Once the landing zones around Maladyzechna were secured, the Dauphin himself landed, followed by his elite troops. He quickly made preparations to advance on Hia'Itakchi while the Estenlandic paratroops tried to 'pacify' the surrounding countryside, which was at that time crawling with Lavragerian partisans.

In the south, the main Estenlands armored thrust continued to push north towards Hia'Itkachi. Both thrusts met very heavy resistance at every turn, much of it on the part of hastily-raised militia units made up of anyone who could walk and carry a rifle. However, unlike the regular Army and Partisan units, these militiamen were of somewhat indifferent quality as soldiers, and although their bravery must, like all Lavragerians, be commended in the highest terms, they were massacred by the Estenlandic and French armored forces. Their efforts were not entirely in vain, however, since the delays they caused bought Hia'Itkachi's better-trained and better-equipped defenders precious days to prepare what would prove a formidable obstacle to the taking of the city.

General Tumin Kalmakoff, the Lavragerian commander of the Hia'Itkachi defenses, took no shortage of direction from history and set about to make his city a Stalingrad for the Estenlandic and French forces. On the outskirts of the city, Kalmakoff's forces dug antitank ditches and sprinkled the landscape with mines and improvised explosives. Barbed wire was strung, trenches were dug, and the defenders prepared for a difficult battle.

Fighting In The East

All the while, a Lavragerian force under Defense Minister Vorobei had entrenched itself along the Russian border, slightly south of Ulanger. Numbering several tens of thousands, Vorobei's force included some of the Lavragerian Army's regular units and plenty of relatively modern Russian weaponry. Their numbers were bolstered by recently-mobilized militiamen, and Russian arms continued to trickle across the border to Vorobei's force. He directly faced an Estenlandic army group commanded by Wingert's Princess Adrianna, married to the Dauphin.

Arrayed upon relatively high ground, Vorobei hoped that he could hold out against the Estenlandic attack long enough for Kalmakoff to dispatch some spare forces to aid his pocket of resistance, but for the moment he could only hope to deflect, and temporarily, increasingly determined and well-organized Estenlandic assaults.

The mood of the Lavragerian regulars, partisans, and militiamen who made up Vorobei's ramshackle army group was summed up my a comment made by an anonymous Lavragerian soldier to a Russian news camera.

"This garden is our home, dear, and I got nowhere else to go... so bring it on".

The Battle For Hia'Itkachi Engages

[[1]]

A Lavragerian partisan with his family in a forest dugout

While the main body of Lavragerians waited in their prepared positions at Hia'Itkachi, a force of around 8,000 regulars sortied out from the city in an attempt to seriously damage the Dauphin's force. This unit was actually motorized, being mounted aboard a collection of technicals and civillian vans, and made relatively quick progress north until they hit the Dauphin's advance guard. The battle that ensued was bloody and costly for both sides.

North of Hia'Itkachi, the remains of the Lavragerian Air Force actually made a showing. By this time, it had lost all its jets, or at least had hidden away those that remained, but a force of around four An-14s, perhaps as many An-2s, two Mi-2s and one Mi-4 began to fly regular sorties in the area. The An-14, a hardy, reliable, and rugged aircraft was transformed by Hindustani foreign service aircrew technicians, borrowed from the HADF's transport squadrons, into a relatively fearsome gunship aircraft. It could be disassembled and hidden in a thicket or unassuming wooden shed, and then rolled out and flown off any patch of relatively flat ground. Typical armament for one of these improvised gunships could consist of two SPG-9 recoilless rifles, four 50kg bombs, two AT-3 launch rails, and a pair of 12.7mm MGs. The four An-14s flew a number of sorties in support of the Lavragerian partisans, and were quite a shock to the Estenlandic paratroops when they first saw them. One pilot, Vasiliy Podgordin, is actually credited with downing an Estenlandic helicopter, although it was more a lucky SA-16 shot than anything else.

One by one, the aircraft of this small wing were shot down, starting with the Mi-4 and ending with Vasiliy Podgordin's An-14. The rest stopped flying sorties and were stashed away, their weaponry scavanged for usage for ground forces.

After several days of hard fighting, and after taking no few losses to Lavragerian partisan actions, the Dauphin Corps was in a position to attack General Tumin Kalmakoff's motorized force. Supported by a large amount of Abrams tanks, the French - surprisingly enough - formed into Napoleonic battle lines. Supported by Apache attack helicopters, the Dauphin Corps charged Kalmakoff's line head-on. One account describes the scene:

"The French Guards had disbanded the line of march, and now formed into their attack companies. The Abrams tanks rolled to the front of the formation, like the knights of old preapring a glorious charge. The Dauphin's tank (which was signifigant modified, with vast all around armor improvements --it was otherwise nondescript) rolled into the central posistion, as the French Camera crews wept with pride."

Lavragerian forces reacted to the Dauphin's attack proffessionally and effectively. SA-16 and SA-18 SAMs, as well as no small number of AAA machine guns, took much of the bite out of the French helicopter support. Machine guns and accurate rifle fire accounted for many casualties amongst French infantry, but the Abrams tanks could only be stopped by antitank mines and other explosives. And facing the Dauphin on what was mildly open ground, no such weapons were laid in quantity.

The battle in Hia'Itkachi's outer defensive perimeter was bloody and difficult. Constant rains, which had turned a significant amount of snow into deep slush and turned the shell-scarred landscape around the city into a desert of mud and wreckage, at first provided provided the Lavragerians with an added advantage. The Dauphin's Abrams tanks were hard-pressed to handle the terrain, and many became hopelessly stuck, easy targets for Kalmakoff's few artillery pieces. Others struck mines, and still others continued advancing towards the Lavragerian lines, surviving infantry still maintaining a respectable formation to their rear. When the Dauphin Corps reached the Lavragerian positions, the battle lost all coherence and sanity.

While spirited and well-trained, the Dauphin's elite soldiers could not hope to compete with the Lavragerians in close quarters. In the words of one historian:

"His [General Kalmakoff's] men would certainly show the French that taking the bayonet to a people who'd known the rocket for only a few years and the machinegun only in moderation was a bloody mistake. French infantry unfortunate enough to reach Lavragerians face to face while they were still alive would soon see their own guts spilling over the new bayonets or traditional knives and swords of the almost unfailingly superior bladesmanship of their Lavragerian rivals..."

The Abrams themselves were set-upon by hordes of Lavragerian troops with grenades, and many were knocked out by well-placed RPG-7 shots. The Lavragerian regulars expertly broke up the French line and attempted to isolate the Abrams tanks, engaging them where they were least able to defend themselves. However, the sheer weight of French numbers began to take a serious toll of Kalmakoff's force. By the end of the day, the Dauphin had forced Lavrageria's finest general into an inevitable rout.

In Hia'Itkachi itself, command fell to another one of Lavrageria's surprisingly competent military commanders, Colonel Aybars Machul'ski. With Kalmakoff's force decisively beaten, the defenses of the city were largely manned by the militias, although with the benefit of increased time for training and relatively more previous military experience the troops under Machul'ski's command were somehwat more able than those holding out with Vorobei. He also had at his disposal hundreds of antitank weapons and highly skilled antitank teams, many of them veterans of the Pripet fighting.

In order to buy the city more time, Machul'ski ordered a force of several hundred volunteers to attack the Dauphin's force, still embattled with the desparate remnants of Kalmakoff's motorized division. Some left the city on horseback, and engaged the rear of the Dauphin Corps, conveniently facing Hia'Itkachi by virtue of Kalmakoff's skilled but ultimately doomed manouvre. Machul'ski's elite motorized anti-tank brigade also joined the attack, and succeeded in destroying several Abrams tanks with well-placed SPG-9 shots. However, the terrain, coupled with determined French resistance, spelt disaster for Machul'ski's brigade. Many of its vehicles became bogged-down in the mud and slush, and were riddled with gunfire from the surviving French Abrams tanks. Machul'ski's brigade was ultimately destroyed, the colonel himself narrowly escaping death. Kalmakoff came quite close to escaping himself, but was cut-off. He chose to surrender rather than see the entirety of his force destroyed.

At the end of the day, nearly 5,200 Lavragerians were counted dead, with another 1,700 wounded. The battle was, on the surface, a major blow to the Lavragerian Army, where one of its ablest commanders was captured and some of its best troops were killed and incapacitated. However, thanks to the bravery and determination shown by the Lavragerian troops, they managed to knock out many Abrams tanks and destroyed a considerable part of the Dauphin Corps. The Dauphin lost so much of his force that he was forced to sit back and lay seige to Hia'Itkachi, joining the Estenlandic forces to the south and east.

[[2]]

A basic map of the Estenlandic line of advance

Vorobei In The East

Meanwhile, the Lavragerian regular, partisan, and militia forces under the general command of Defense Minister Vorobei continued to hold out, and kept the Russian border open in several precious areas. Vorobei and several other commanders, in intermittent communication with one another, kept several pockets of Lavragerian resistance open in the northeast of the country. Guerrilla activity and the survival of large numbers of regular forces in these pockets kept Estenlandic forces from participating in what could have been a decisive and final assault on the Hia'Itakchi enclave, and formed the basis of what would become the new Lavragerian Republic.

Another action in the east of the country deserves to be detailed, this one conducted by the now-famous mercenary Derek Morgan. Along with Russian GRU special forces under the command of Ivan Kadishev, one of Putin's most trusted and capable deputies, a force of Strathdonian mercenaries, GRU agents, and Lavragerian partisans launched a daring raid into the rear of Estenlandic lines. The force, however, never made it much past the front, as it was spotted and pinned-down in a firefight. Morgan and the other raiders inflicted damage out of proportion to their numbers, and many of them managed to retreat back to safety.

The War Ends

By late February, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, led by Quinntonia and The British Federation, had enough time to concoct a proper solution to the Lavragerian War. Quinntonia, internationally respected, put foreward a proposal to host a peace summit in Washington, D.C., and The British Federation deployed a large and powerful military force to monitor a cease fire in place in Lavrageria.

After a long and convoluted series of negotiations, a settlement was, at long last, put into effect. The Lavragerian War was finally ended in mid-March, and Lavrageria itself was partitioned.

The Aftermath

The strategic consequences are paltry compared to what the war meant to the Lavragerian people. To this day, no one has conducted a thorough survey of the Lavragerian population, but it is undeniable that the war caused unbelievable hardship for most Lavragerians. Tsarist Lavrageria remains hidden behind the border, off limits to foreign cameras, and Estenlandic Army reports are still firmly locked away in Kiev's archives. French records stolen during that country's fleeting Republican revolution indicate, however, that French cruise missiles rained upon Lavragerian cities, and from this alone it is easy to extrapolate civillian casualty figures.

One must remember that Lavrageria had no modern, safe, or reliable buildings and that most of its cities had been built from the most basic of materials, and rather quickly at that. Streets were too narrow, apartment blocks too flimsy, and everything in sight was flammable. Cities like Itageria were turned into piles of charred wreckage and their citizens displaced. It is even rumored that some Lavragerians from the Tsarist section were shipped off to France as slave labor, although there is no evidence confirming this besides the existence in France of numerous individuals suspected of being Lavragerian in ancestry, and these are few and far between.

The Glakatahn still live largely as they have, existing on the border with Poland and Lithuania in large numbers, inside Tsarist territory but largely unmolested by Kiev. It is somewhat ironic that the very barbarians that Paris and Kiev railed against in their justification for going to war in Lavrageria were almost entirely unaffected and even today live as they have for centuries past.

It is indisputable that the Lavragerian War was the most costly and disastrous conflict in Europe since the end of World War Two.

Gazetteer

Ulanger: corresponds to the Belorussian town of Mogilev/Mahilyow, and the capital of Lavrageria

Itageria: corresponds to the Belorussian town of Homyel/Gomel

Hia'Iktachi: corresponds to the Belorussian town of Minsk

Vargery: corresponds to the Belorussian town of Drsha/Orsha, one of the largest Lavragerian cities with over one million inhabitants

Hiagery: corresponds to the Belorussian town of Vitebesk/Vitsyebsk

Threads For Reference

[3]

The main body of the Lavragerian War

[4]

Background information

[5]

The aftermath of the Lavragerian War