Expert: Dictator Lukashenka Was Left without an Army

What is actually happening in the armed forces of Belarus?

The Ministry of Defense of Belarus regularly conducts tactical exercises, in which a relatively small number of servicemen, up to a battalion, take part. At the same time, the media of our neighbors are silent. Such a disdainful attitude towards the Belarusian army can be explained very simply: our closest neighbors understand very well what the Belarusian army is without the support of the Russian Federation.

“Intrigued by such silence, we decided to independently figure out the results of the military construction of Aliaksandr Lukashenka as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Republic of Belarus,” writes expert Sergei Sanko in an article for the website bolkunets.org.

Lesser army

The military assets inherited by Belarus from the USSR were simply enormous. At least three full armies could have been equipped with army equipment stored in Belarus. Judge for yourself: after the Belovezhskaya Pushcha accords, there were 294 aircraft, 80 attack helicopters, 1615 artillery systems, 1800 tanks, 2600 armored vehicles, and about 60 medium-range missile systems in Belarus. Belarus was less fortunate with the legacy of the air defense system. Being located “in the depths” of the defensive orders of the USSR, Belarus did not manage to get modern air defense systems. The defense of the skies of the former Soviet republic was provided by the outdated S-200, S-75, S-125, and military air defense systems - S-300V and Buk, and the military "three-hundreds" were in small numbers, no more than two regiments. Fortunately, relatively modern S-300 air defense systems were delivered from Russia in the middle of the 2000s in the amount of 20 divisions or 80 launchers.

There was neither sense nor money to maintain the armada of the Belarusian Military District in independent Belarus, therefore, after several stages of reductions, 65 thousand people remained in the army out of the initial 280 thousand.

The figure of 65 thousand does not reflect the real number of military personnel, since 14.5 thousand of them are civilian personnel. In total, the Defense Ministry has only 50 thousand people in its assets. This number of servicemen is not enough even to equip the smallest army, a small army corps at most.

At the same time, the army of Belarus can rightfully be called an officer's one: for 25.6 thousand soldiers and sergeants in the army, there are 14.5 thousand officers and 6.8 thousand warrant officers, that is, we have one officer for every two soldiers.

There are five branches of the armed forces in the structure of our armed forces:

ground forces - 16.5 thousand people;

Air Force and Air Defense Forces — 11.5 thousand people;

special operations forces - 6 thousand people;

transport troops and territorial troops.

Much or little depends on the foreign policy situation and the presence of threats from the neighboring states.

If we take our neighbors, Poland and Ukraine, which have developed very difficult relations with the regime, then the number of their armed forces is 250 and 255 thousand people, respectively. Moreover, Poland began to build up its army in 2013, having increased it from 120 thousand to 250 thousand by 2021. The reader is also aware of the situation in Ukraine: after the dramatic events of 2014, the size of the army was increased from 168 thousand to 255 thousand people.

Weaker than Lithuania

The state of the armed forces is determined not only by the number of servicemen but also by the budget allocated for the maintenance of the army, and, by this indicator, Belarus is an order of magnitude inferior to its neighbors. The annual budget of the Polish Armed Forces in 2020 amounted to $ 11.6 billion; it is planned to spend $ 55 billion on the weapons modernization program. It includes purchases of fifth-generation F-35 fighters and modernized Abrams M1A2 SEPv3 tanks. The Ukrainian army is maintained a little more modestly - $4.171 billion. On September 20, President Zelenski signed a decree to increase financing of the security and defense sector, which in 2022 must amount to $12 billion, of which about $5.5 billion is allocated for the maintenance of the Armed Forces.

In this respect, the state of the Belarusian army looks even more depressing than its size. The annual budget of the armed forces is financed at the level of 1% of GDP and amounts to only $ 680 million. According to this indicator, Lukashenka's army can only compete with Estonia and Latvia. Even small Lithuania, which gave the dictator a lot of problems, puts Lukashenka's nose out of joint and finances its troops twice as much - $ 1.2 billion a year.

Virtual militia

The reluctance to spend money on his own army led Lukashenka to a very original (albeit very ridiculous) decision. Territorial defense troops numbering 120 thousand people were created in Belarus. The duties of this military surrogate include the protection of important facilities, assistance in the mobilization of reservists, partisan warfare, and sabotage.

The territorial defense troops are manned by residents of administrative-territorial units capable of military service, i.e. reservists who have completed military service. The leadership of the troops is vested in the regional executive committees.

However, eyewashing and showing off surpassed even the army scale. The militia created by Lukashenka is not being recruited on a voluntary basis. An idea has always been the hallmark of any militia created - as a militarized continuation of a popular movement. The militia, created to protect the state, is composed of people who, due to their health, are unsuitable for military service but due to their own convictions are ready to defend their homeland, as it was in the war of 1812 and World War II. Considering Lukashenka's authority, which fluctuates at the level of 3%, it is difficult to imagine 120 thousand citizens of Belarus who joined the territorial defense forces for ideological reasons.

In fact, these troops only exist on paper. According to the order of the regional executive committees, employees of state enterprises, factories, plants, and collective farms are recruited there and forced to participate compulsorily.

There is a feeling that when creating the territorial defense troops, Lukashenka was inspired by the history of the partisan movement in Belarus during the Great Patriotic War. But, apparently, he forgot that Belarus was liberated from Nazism not by the partisan underground, driven by the Germans into forests and swamps, but by a regular army, which Lukashenka actually does not have.

So the combat effectiveness and, most importantly, the existence of these troops is highly questionable.

A dictator without an army

Analyzing the main indicators of the armed forces of the Republic of Belarus, it is difficult to understand what Lukashenka is counting on with such a small and underfunded army. For many centuries, a strong and numerous army was an invariable attribute and a source of pride for all dictators who relied on it both in the event of internal conflicts and attempts by neighbors to reason with despotic regimes.

Perhaps Lukashenka is counting on the support of an ally - the Russian Federation, which within the framework of the CSTO is obliged to provide military assistance in the event of a conflict. But history shows that Russia is capable of acting very harshly and rudely towards its neighbors, for example, as was the case with Georgia and Ukraine. In this case, it will be impossible to protect the Belarusian statehood.