Sakhashchyk was an avid reader of adventure books involving travel and military conflict, motivating him to aim at a air force career.

[2] In 1992, he returned to Brest, where he was appointed Deputy Commander of the 2nd Paratrooper Battalion of the 38th Separate Guards Air Assault Brigade of newly independent Belarus, and promoted to Combatant after six months.

He was seen in a protest in Brest on 16 August 2020, organising a group of 38th Brigade members that aimed to prevent confrontations between protestors and police from becoming violent.

Sakhashchyk stated that he believed at the time that a legal approach within the Belarusian Constitution should have allowed citizens to defend their rights.

[2] At a meeting of the Belarusian opposition in Berlin in July 2022, former military commander Vadim Prokopyev proposed that Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the apparent winner of the 2020 presidential election and leader-in-exile of the Belarusian opposition, should play the role of British Queen Elizabeth and that a "Winston Churchill, head of the military cabinet" was needed in the role of prime minister.

The name of Sakhashchyk emerged in the discussion[2] and on 9 August 2022 he was appointed as the member for defence and security in the Belarusian United Transitional Cabinet, aimed at replacing the de facto Lukashenko government.

[3] In October 2022, Sakhashchyk published another video appeal, again calling for Belarusian armed forces to refuse to participate in a speculated attack on Ukraine.

[4] In June 2023 it became known that Valery Sakhashchyk headed a separate Belarusian airborne assault company in the armed forces of Ukraine.