Meeting to discuss military security issues

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko visited the Defense Ministry of Belarus on 26 May where he hosted a meeting to discuss military security issues.

The head of state emphasized the need to discuss topical issues on adjusting the areas of further development of the Armed Forces under the present-day conditions.

“The current events in the neighboring countries testify to the high dynamics of changes in the threats to the military security of Belarus, with the views on the use of military force and methods of armed struggle being transformed,” the Belarusian leader said.

“Look, when we met, it was before Russia's military operation in Ukraine, we had a different idea of how to improve and modernize our Armed Forces. Three months of the confrontation between Ukraine and Russia, of the military operation have passed, and we have realized that we need to drop our initial modernization strategy as it turned out to be too expensive and overall unacceptable for our country. We have built a better understanding of what kind of army we should have,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin informed the head of state that in line with the task, taking into account the current developments and the assessment of the hostilities in Ukraine, the ministry revised the approaches to the improvement of the Armed Forces. This work will be carried out in several directions.

The President pointed out that the United States and its satellites continued the course on aggravation of relations with the whole world. In his words, there is a heated confrontation with Russia, China, increasing military presence near Belarus, as an ally of Russia, including large-scale exercises near its borders.

“Under the cover of defensive issues these maneuvers are working on the redeployment of troops from the United States, Western Europe, the development and use of groupings. We can see the real purpose of the NATO exercises. In fact, this is reconnaissance and development of a possible future theater of military operations. According to the U.S. plan, Europe and NATO have entered into a global confrontation with Russia. In this struggle, Belarus is to face unprecedented and prolonged economic, political and even military pressure,” the Belarusian leader said. "A few years ago I said that our big problem is the geographical location. The Lord has put us in the center of the European continent. No matter what happens here, Belarus has always been the place where the interests of major players have clashed. This is what is going on, thank God without a military confrontation, without a hot war so far. God willing, this will not happen.”

According to Aleksandr Lukashenko, military pressure will come via Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and the NATO troops deployed there, and also through the escalation of combat actions in Ukraine.

The head of state stressed that the current situation requires the troops to be ready to give an adequate response to military steps against Belarus.

“Besides, we have to determine the main areas of further development of our army. We proceed from the fact that the level of military threats to Belarus will increase in the future and these measures should be taken as soon as possible,” the President said.

In his words, the task was set at the meeting with the senior officials of the Defense Ministry to work out proposals on the areas of the Armed Forces development under present conditions. Aleksandr Lukashenko asked to report on the results of the work done so far.

Aleksandr Lukashenko also deems necessary to step up work to counter the information warfare. "In terms of information counteraction, we have been working on this front. I will not say that we have achieved great successes here, but we cannot do without information support of the work that we, the military, are doing in the country today. It's not the future, it's the present. And we are somewhat lagging behind," he said.

The head of state urged to strengthen the work on information counteraction because military operations in the modern world are complex. "This is an economic war, an information war, and a hot war. These are hybrid wars. Therefore, we need to step up work across all areas, no matter how difficult it may be," the President outlined the tasks.

According to Aleksandr Lukashenko, it is universally accepted that it is difficult to fight against the countries, which not only have military might but a large population, too. However, this factor does not determine the outcome of military actions as strongly as it did in the past, the commander-in-chief pointed out.

“You have to win with ability, not with numbers as our prominent military leader once said. It is becoming seriously topical now. It means that even such a small country like Belarus is quite capable of resisting the largest countries,” Aleksandr Lukashenko stated. “But I stress once again that a hot war is something we know how to do and we will do it if we have to, god forbid. Information confrontation, which precedes a hot war and accompanies any military confrontation, is very important.”