Republic

Alexander Lukashenko: enhancement of Belarus’ defence capacity through arms upgrade

The upgrading of modern weaponry remains the main direction the enhancement of Belarus’ defence capacity follows. The statement was made by President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko on November 27, as he visited the State Defence Industries Committee to get familiar with the progress in modernising air defence systems. “The defence capacity of a country is a most important strategic element. It is an axiom. There are two ways to keep up with the times: we can import ultramodern weapons or we can upgrade the contemporary weapons that we have now,” said the President. “We took the third way: we import what we can, but we mainly upgrade the armaments on our own,” said the head of state. Alexander Lukashenko remarked, the modernisation of air defence missile systems gives Belarus prospects of import substitution, keeps companies working and allows tapping the Belarusian intellectual potential. Alexander Lukashenko, top executives of the State Defence Industries Committee and the Security Council discussed prospects of upgrading capabilities of the air defence missile systems the army has now using ADMS Buk MB as an example. “If we learn how these air defence missile systems can be upgraded, we can provide the services to many countries that have been traditionally using Soviet arms,” explained the President. Alexander Lukashenko reminded, he had issued the instruction for enhanced upgrade of these air defence missile systems in three brigades in 2004. The head of state noted, the previous upgrade proposal Belarus had earlier was totally outdated and did not suit the government in several ways. A decision had been taken to upgrade the missile systems independently. However, the upgrade deadline was not met. Therefore, in May 2007 the President gave an instruction to set up a commission involving representatives of the Security Council, Presidential Administration, State Control Committee, Defence Ministry, and State Defence Industries Committee in order to find out the reasons for the broken deadlines and to assess the urgency and prospects of further modernisation of these types of weaponry. The President of Belarus gave an instruction to assess how much the upgrade will increase capabilities of the Belarusian air defence and prospects of promoting Belarusian armaments abroad.