Expert: Belarusian army monitors modern armed conflicts and ready to adapt promptly
President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko visited the 230th Obuz-Lesnovsky Combined Arms Training Range on September 24th, and the prospects for the development of unmanned aircraft and electronic warfare, taking into account the experience of modern armed conflicts, were discussed there. In his talk with Alfa Radio, Aleksei Avdonin, an expert at the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies, explained what the Belarusian army is focusing on at present.
Mr. Avdonin stressed that the President pays special attention to the modernisation of Belarus’ Armed Forces and their equipment with modern weapons, “Importantly, the Head of State actually keeps abreast of current trends in the development of weapons, military equipment and the way of fighting. Specialists of the Belarusian army have been monitoring changes in the tactics of the operational art and the strategy of NATO, the work of private paramilitary companies over the past four years. As a result, we can now assert that Belarus has accepted all these changes and innovations and applied them in equipping the Armed Forces with advanced weapons. The President has demonstrated that the Belarusian army is modern, it is not the one that was ready for the already past war. Our army monitors modern armed conflicts and is ready to quickly change and adapt itself, thus being ready to repel any aggression against Belarus.”
The expert noted that the West had moved to the classic form of cold war warfare, “It is militarising our suburbs, the borderlands: Poland, the Baltic States, and Ukraine. By doing this, we are being involved into an arms race. It is clear that the collective West has plenty of resources and, due to this race, it is actually driving into a situation where our resources can be directed exclusively to defence. As a result, the country will forget about its socio-economic obligations to the population. With an active influence of various psychological centres, it is possible to form some kind of protest moods in society: to say that all resources go to defence, so the life is not good, and protests are needed. Such a strategy was actually chosen to destroy the USSR through the Cold War.”
Mr. Avdonin added that the President of Belarus had not followed that model, “It began to be imposed on us since the mid-2010s, after the events in Ukraine in 2014. The West then switched to the model of imposing the spirit of militarism. Our Head of State has openly said more than once that we should not be allowed to go into a militarisation regime and an arms race, since this could negatively affect the economy and the well-being of our citizens. The key point is to be able to correctly adapt modern trends in the development of weapons related to the use of military units in armed conflicts. It is necessary to train and arm our units, but not to move on to total militarisation. After all, the latter does not bring anything good to the state if there is excessive disbalance.”
