Belarus’ Interior Ministry: shopping mall chosen as venue for command and staff exercises

One of the Belarusian shopping malls became an object of the command and staff exercises ongoing in the country, sb.by reports with reference to the Interior Ministry

The exercises were monitored by State Secretary of the Security Council Aleksandr Volfovich, Interior Minister Ivan Kubrakov, deputy ministers, heads of the Interior Ministry departments, and representatives of government agencies. The special purpose units demonstrated co-ordination of actions and professionalism.

According to the Interior Ministry, several tasks were worked out: suppression of resistance to police officers, search and neutralisation of armed criminals, release of hostages, as well as the elimination of the source of fire by the Ministry of Emergency Situations. As a result of the operation, public order was restored: the hostages were released, the criminals were neutralised.

At the end of the exercise stage, Mr. Kubrakov stressed, “We have worked out the situations that had previously been observed outside Belarus: i.e. the terrorist attack that took place in the Moscow Region in March (140+ people were killed then). Religious fanatics operated there, and they had just one goal: to destroy as many innocent people as possible. We have comprehensively analysed these and other events and drawn the appropriate conclusions. We understand that we need to act quickly, and we can lose time – and, accordingly, human lives – if start clarifying some issues with each other. Therefore, we have assessed as part of the training how the first teams and special units arriving at the alarm work.”

Mr. Kubrakov noted that the internal affairs bodies and internal troops of the Interior Ministry have all the forces and means to ensure the safety of citizens.

photos by Interior Ministry