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NATIONAL DEFENSE: TECHNOLOGICAL ACHIEVEMENTS AND POLITICAL FAILuRES
Andrei Porotnikov
Summary
For the second year in a row, Belarus was losing its status of Russia's closest defense partner and was seeking to reduce its dependence on Russia in the defense sector. Political and military relations with Ukraine were getting worse throughout the year. The dialogue with NATO was on the verge of freezing by the end of the year. At the same time, there was a very rapid expansion of Belarus' defense cooperation with China, Kazakhstan and other states. The army continued preparing for responding to hybrid threats. Combat practices focused on rapid mobilization, the ability to act in isolation from the main forces, interdepartmental interaction and operations in populated areas. The Veishnoria story and deaths of conscript soldiers undermined the credibility of the military leadership both on the part of society and the political leadership of the country.
Trends:
• The foreign policy background of Belarus' national security deteriorated;
• Belarus and China opened up new horizons in defense cooperation;
• Priority in the armament program was given to missile weapons;
• The image of the army was tarnished by failures of the Defense Ministry leadership.
Defense industry: eliminating the dependence on the Russian market
In 2017, the national military-industrial complex (MIC) was working hard to step up international cooperation.
Defense-related matters were addressed at the highest level in talks with Egypt, sudan, serbia, Georgia, Vietnam, and Azerbaijan. Belarusian military-technical cooperation commissions and committees held joint sessions with the uAE, Vietnam, Turkey, and Cuba. Belarus and Kazakhstan were active in this area. Minsk and Astana obviously attach great importance to defense. Chairman of the state Military-industrial Commit-
tee of Belarus Oleg Dvigalev met with Minister of Defense and Aerospace Industries of Kazakhstan Beibut Atamkulov three times since July 2017.1
Traditionally, relations with China have been showing increasing dynamics in recent years. When meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in May, Alexander Lukashenko stated Belarus' interest in joint designing and manufacturing weapons.2 Accepting a high-ranking Chinese delegation in August, Lukashenko repeated the proposal to set up joint production of military hardware in Belarus, including in the Great Stone Industrial Park. 3 China showed interest in the proposal. Delegations of Chinese departments in charge of military-technical cooperation (Equipment Development Department of the Central Military Commission and State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense) and heads of defense industry corporations visited Belarus several times to look at Belarusian enterprises and assess the business climate in the country. The represented companies manufacture products that are of the greatest interest to Belarus: UAVs (including strike ones), wheeled armored vehicles, small and medium-range air defense systems, high-precision weapons and ammunition.
At the military exhibition Milex 2017 held in May 2017, Belarus and China arranged joint booths for the first time to showcase Chinese prototypes of unmanned aircrafts planned for joint production in Belarus.
On September 27—29, Minsk hosted the first session of the Belarusian-Chinese joint armaments and materiel task group of the Coordination Committee for Cooperation.
Meanwhile, efforts to reduce defense cooperation with Russia were made, as it wants to set up its own production of
«Беларусь и Казахстан обозначили перспективные направления двустороннего военно-технического сотрудничества на ближайшую перспективу.» Госкомвоенпром. 29 Nov. 2017. Web. 7 Mar. 2018. <http:// www.vpk.gov. by/news/comm_news/6122/>.
"Meeting with China President Xi Jinping." The Official Internet Portal of the President of the Republic of Belarus. 16 May. 2017. Web. 7 Mar. 2018. <http://president.gov.by/en/news_en/view/meeting-with-china-president-xi-jinping-16199/>.
«Беларусь за китайской стеной.» Belarus Security Blog. 07 Aug. 2017. Web. 7 Mar. 2018. <https://bsblog.info/belarus-za-kitajskoj-stenoj/>.
items produced in Belarus. The commentary titled 'Defense Sector Concerned about Tension with Russia' shown on ONT TV channel said that it was due to the strained relations between the leadership of the two countries.4 Media reports on Belarusian-Russian defense cooperation problems are indicative of the alarming situation and nothing suggests that things will improve in the future.
New weapons: still not enough
Belarus' defense industry carried out just a part of the plans made for 2017. For example, a concept of the national air defense system was shown at Milex-20 1 75, but it is unclear when it would be finalized. The upgraded multiple rocket launcher Polonaise with new China made missiles 300 km in range was tested in October 26 in Belarus.
The Belarusian army went through irregular rearmament by means of procurement of single pieces of materiel. Supplies with new aircrafts drew the most attention. In April, Belarus received six new Mi-8 MTV-5 helicopters. In June, Russian sources said there was an agreement to supply 12 heavy-duty multi-functional Su-30SM fighters to Belarus, but the deal was preliminary postponed until 2019.
The army is preparing for a hybrid war
A traditional comprehensive combat readiness check was conducted in February 2017. The traditional inspection had several distinctive peculiarities.
First, a great deal of the operations, such as landing from 11-76 strategic airlifters and pontoon spanning was practiced at night.
«Оборонный сектор обеспокоен напряжением в отношениях с Россией.» ОНТ. 07 Mar. 2017. Web. 7 Mar. 2018. <http://ont.by/ news/our_news/poligon-ekonomicheskih-dejstvij-oboronnij-sektor-obespokoen-napryazheniem-v>.
«Представлен концепт национального ЗРК.» Belarus Security Blog. 21 May. 2017. Web. 7 Mar. 2018. <https://bsblog.info/predstavlen-koncept-nacionalnogo-zrk/>.
Secondly, the main goal of the inspection was to assess the capacity of recalling reservists, deployment of newly formed units, and staffing with junior rank officers. The first ever Central Reserve Training Department was formed. Enlistment offices provided up to 900 reservists a day. Sometimes, it only took two hours to notify those bound to military service of the recall and deliver them to assembly stations. Around 3,000 people were called out for training. This is the largest number in the past seven years or over.
Like many times over the past few years, the Belarusian military confronted simulated illegal armed groups heavily equipped with armored vehicles.
Combat training activities focused on military operations in conditions of a so-called 'hybrid war'. The exercises stood out for their geographical scope of the hostilities theater; involvement of interdepartmental forces; logistical and technical support in isolation from the points of permanent deployment in conditions of constant attacks on transport highways; practicing of assault and defense actions with the use of artillery and sharpshooters in populated localities; protection of important infrastructure facilities; screening of the population in order to identify combatants, and search and elimination of sabotage-reconnaissance groups.
The fight against the mythical militants involved the air force, particularly L-39 training planes, Yak-130 operational trainers, and Su-25 strike fighters to search for the targets and make massive and localized strikes on them, including those from extremely low altitudes.
The foreign policy background is deteriorating
The foreign policy background of national defense was going worse throughout the entire year. Belarus was under pressure from several directions: the West, Ukraine and Russia.
In February, Minsk was subjected to several informational and psychological attacks. First, Russian media claimed that Belarus was about to withdraw from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Then, after Russian blogger Alexander Lapshin was
extradited to Azerbaijan on the charge of illegally visiting the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Armenian politicians, including members of the ruling party, made harsh statements regarding Belarus and called on to expel Belarus from the CSTO.
Ukrainian officials accused Belarus more than once of the lack of transparency of military activities and letting Russia build up its military presence in the country.
The military parade on July 3 in Minsk was quite indicative. For the first time in recent years, Russia's participation in the event was limited to a few planes in the air.6 Earlier, from 2011 to 2016, Pskov airborne troopers, who participated in the invasion of the Donbas region in 2014, marched together with the Belarusian military. The military parade of 2016 involved a Russian air force unit stationed in the Rostov region and in the Crimea. Most likely, Minsk decided to reconsider Russia's participation to prevent political demarches of Ukraine.
West-2017: the legend of Veishnoria
The Belarusian-Russian strategic exercise West-2017 dealt a blow to the reputation of Belarus.
Western neighbors of Belarus and Ukraine regarded exercises that took place in the territory of Belarus and other large-scale military training activities of the Russian army in August-September as parts of one process, and the Belarusian leadership failed to separate them, neither in terms of defense, nor politics. Fears spread in the Western press that the Kremlin can use Russian troops deployed in Belarus to destabilize the situation in the country and/or for provocations against Ukraine and the Baltic States during or after West-2017. Belarus' reputation was damaged by the script of the exercise-Belarusian-Russian joint operations against the fictitious country of Veishnoria located in the north-western part of Belarus with a predominantly Catholic population and a significant Polish minority. The Ministry of Defense turned out to be unprepared to ensure proper working
«Военный парад в Минске: на что стоит обратить внимание.» Belarus Security Blog. 04 Jul. 2017. Web. 7 Mar. 2018. <https://bsblog.info/ voennyj-parad-v-mmske-na-chto-stoit-obratit-vnimanie/>.
conditions for Western and Ukrainian media during the exercise. The ministry was also unable to promptly and convincingly react to the disinformation of the Russian side concerning the redeployment of a non-existent tank brigade from the Moscow region to Belarus.7
In short, Russia managed to make the joint exercise an act of intimidation of the West, and Belarus' attempts to counter this were not convincing enough.
The Kremlin succeeded in intimidating its neighbors using Belarus, but it did not strengthen the trust between the two countries. Russian top officials even refused to oversee the part of the exercise, which took place in Belarus.
Reputational disaster in the Defense Ministry
The Ministry of Defense was repeatedly subjected to public criticism throughout the year, particularly for the Victory Day parade and West-2017. Despite criticism on the part of society and the president, who spoke in March about poor discipline and incompliance with law in the army, it remained fenced out as usual. The death of conscript Alexander Korzhych changed the situation. The ministry first tried to conceal the incident and denied the criminal cause of the death, and then, when mass violations in the unit where Korzhych served went public, the ministry tried to muffle the outrage.
The ministry reacted to the death of the soldier two weeks after the body was found and only after President Lukashenko expressed his condolences to the soldier's family. Defense Minister Andrei Ravkov confined himself to set phrases through the state media.
Faced with public outrage, the Investigative Committee of Belarus opened dozens of criminal cases on offences against law in the army. Several military middle-rank commanders were removed from their positions and some of them were later dismissed from service.
«"Запад-2017": раз — провокация, два — провокация.» Belarus Security Blog. 15 сентября 2017. Web. 7 Mar. 2018. <https://bsblog.info/zapad-2017-raz-provokaciya-dva-provokaciya/>.
Korzhych's death revealed a number of negative trends in the army associated with violations of the rights of conscripts and officers' negligence. The public wanted Minister Ravkov out of office and gathered over 13,000 signatures for his dismissal, which was an all-time record for Belarus.
Conclusion
The development of domestic production of various types of missile weapons remains a priority for the leadership of Belarus. A Belarus made medium-range air defense system with missiles of domestic manufacture will make it possible to replace Buk and S-300 that will reduce the technological dependence on Russia in this critically important area.
The year 2018 will show whether there is political will and economic reason for setting up Chinese production facilities in Belarus. Both sides have been demonstrating mutual interest so far.
Belarus' politico-military relations with NATO, Ukraine and Russia are in a state of crisis. The parties are obviously annoyed with each other, although they try to hide it. They have no one to blame for this situation but themselves, though.
The Belarusian military-political leadership does not see a threat of a major war in the region, and is preparing for a so-called 'hybrid war'.
Despite loud promises, Belarus' activities during its presidency in the Collective Security Treaty Organization were rather meagre. This only confirms a degradation of the CSTO as a security tool for Minsk. This should be viewed as one of the manifestations of the general crisis in Belarusian-Russian relations.
The reputation of the army cannot be restored without personnel changes in the Ministry of Defense. And this is another point of interest in 2018: will there be a reshuffle, and who exactly will be removed from office.
