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Independent Investigation: Belarusian Army Lacks Money

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Independent Investigation: Belarusian Army Lacks Money

Are the military capable of performing their primary mission?

The salute projectiles hitting the people in the audience, tanks demolishing asphalt in the city, soldiers and officers committing suicide because of hazing. Such news has dominated recently in the reports of the independent press about the national army, reports Belsat.

The state media report on combat readiness, patriotism and firepower. To which extent is the Belarusian army really capable of performing the main task - to protect the country and the people?

This is the most underfinanced army in the region. According to the International Peace Research Institute, Belarus allocates about one percent of its gross domestic product for defense. This is multi-fold less than all our neighbors.

This year, after the parade, one of the tanks almost repeated the famous last year's trick, when a combat vehicle hit a lamp-post. Some military experts explain: one of the reasons for the poor professionalism demonstrated in these incidents may be financial. So, Estonia, which has a 10 times smaller army (also partly conscription), spends on it about the same amount of money as Belarus, whose authorities constantly use external danger in their rhetoric.

“Today, everyone seem to be fighting with one another. And this is happening not just around us, but near our borders,” Lukashenka said during his speech at the July 3 parade in Minsk.

The lack of funds for training means that our soldiers have much less fuel for training trips on the military equipment, fewer bullets and shells, which can be spent on practicing combat skills.

“Our Ministry of Defense believes that these funds are sufficient to ensure security in our current realities, also within the framework of the coordination of military defense with the Russian Federation,” military observer Yahor Lebiadok commented for Belsat.

The strength of the Belarusian army specialists include staffing with modernized military equipment. At the present parade, the military demonstrated both their own products of the domestic military industry and the result of the proposed joint developments with China.

“Some progress is going on, but basically all this is based on the Soviet legacy. New armored vehicles are being developed, and, of course, radio communications, electronic warfare, and unmanned vehicles are being worked on, ” Lebiadok said.

Formal staffing with the equipment allowed the Belarusian army to enter the top ten of the strongest armies in Europe according to the Global Firepower rating. Meanwhile, the journalists asked the residents of Minsk just how efficient they believe their army to be:

“Not everyone is properly trained. The best ranks, I think, will be able to defend us, and the rest are basically incapable. ”

“Tanks - that's all: I think they are from the Soviet Union yet. And the strong point, I think, character, probably. ”

Observer Dzianis Ivashyn notes that the moral factor may be the weak link in the combat capability of the Belarusian army. The reason is the lack of patriotic education of young people and inconsistent presentation of the value of independence by the officials and the media. In this regard, in his opinion, young people lack understanding of what they are doing in the army and what they are preparing to defend against.

“Today’s Belarusian army continues the traditions of the Belarusian military district of the Soviet Union,” believes Dzianis Ivashyn.

According to the Informnapalm’s investigation, this year the Russian artillery units participated in the independence parade, which took part in the bombing of the Ukrainian Mariupol on the side of the separatists. In addition, the Russian technology looks like a demonstration of the power of the Kremlin before Minsk and the West. Dzianis Ivashyn, who conducted this investigation, believes that such a demonstration may give an ambiguous signal.

“The military-political leadership of Belarus thus demonstrates that Belarus is not a neutral country,” notes Ivashyn.

With a relatively low financing of the army, which protects the country from external enemies, Belarus has proportionately the largest internal forces in the world, aimed at protecting the government from the threats coming from its own citizens.

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