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I Consider Amendments to the Law on Conscription Damaging, Mikalai Statkevich Says

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I Consider Amendments to the Law on Conscription Damaging, Mikalai Statkevich Says

A normal army can exist only in a normal country.

June 28, Belarus passed a scandalous law "on deferments," which soon was unofficially called "Raukou's Law."

Will these measures improve the country's defence capability?

The presidential candidate from the Belarusian National Congress, reserve lieutenant colonel, PhD in Technical Sciences Mikalai Statkevich answers questions of Charter97.org.

- You passed PhD defence in military machine systems and taught at elite military and technical institution of your time - the Military Academy of Defence. Should a modern combat-ready army be "large or smart "?

- I would not oppose these two qualities. These are relative concepts.

A large country with a large population will even have a professional army big enough to protect the country.

We are a small state with the war waging nearby. The aggressor threatens us as well. And we need something more than a small professional army. Several tens of thousands of people will not be able to protect the country from the aggressor that exceeds us in population by many times.

In peacetime, our army may be small, but it must have an adequate mobilization resource and grow several times in case of war.

Therefore, our geopolitical conditions make it not possible for us to abandon the conscription and training of young people in military affairs. At the same time, modern military education requires a significant part of the army to be professional. It means that high-tech professions require special training for professional military officers, sergeants and soldiers.

The other thing is, this conscription shouldn't be like this. Everything should start with the cultivation of patriotism in the Belarusian society. Secondly, society must respect those who serve. It requires a system of social benefits for the military, including access to free higher education.

Finally, the service as it exists now makes no sense. In the 21st century, our small country can stop training robots wearing shoulder straps and switch to a normal system.

The army should be freer. It is possible to learn military skills on weekdays and go home on weekends. It is high time to give up these huge barracks and place cadets in rooms with several people.

Military service should pursue one goal - to learn how to fight. Nutrition, soldiers should not be involved in the cleaning of premises and territory. Civilian firms should do this.

This will cause a reduction in the length of military service. One can learn to fight in just six months.

- Do the latest activities of Raukou-Karpenka strengthen the defence capability of Belarus?

- No. Current activities are the exact opposite of what I have just told you.

People do not understand why they have to sacrifice so much time to the service in the structure, which function is not completely clear. When commanders say "We are a part of the union state," there is a question who is this enemy the army protects us from? After all, the main threat to us and our independence comes from the "union state".

When people see a country that is not free and watch this person wearing the shoulder straps of the "commander-in-chief" kneels before Moscow and says "We are one nation", a logical question arises: whom and how to serve?

What's going on in this commander-in-chief's army?

There are humiliations, soldiers are treated like slaves. The fact that service in the army is not considered as the work experience speaks for itself.

Raukou's measures worsen the situation. People will be thinking about how to send their children abroad after school and make sure they won't come back. We will lose the most talented, capable and active ones.

The new draft law will not prevent attempts to avoid service. It will simply turn a "service escape" into the escape from the country. Now we are already losing hundreds of thousands of people, if not more...

So the new law has nothing to do with defence capability. The system itself has to be put upside down. But it is not possible to do in a nonfree country under the dictatorship.

I believe that amendments to Raukou's law are damaging. We can create a real army capable of defence only in a free country.

Under the parasitic dictatorship that has seized power in our country, only such inefficient steps as this notorious "law on deferments" may be adopted.

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