Glass dome of national defense

Andrei Porotnikov

Summary

In 2018, the Belarusian army continued training to respond to a local high-intensity conflict with a focus on actions in urban areas, which, among other things, required an adjustment in the territorial defense configuration.

The newly created national system of government communications is an essential element of stability in a crisis situation. The first UAV production facility was set up jointly with a Chinese defense company.

The State Military Industrial Committee chairman was replaced due to unresolved defense industry issues. Creation of strike UAVs was among the Committee’s top priorities.

The Prosecutor’s Office was closely monitoring law observance in the army, which indicates a high degree of concern over offences committed by the military.

Trends:

Combat training peculiarities

In 2018, the armed forces were intensively rehearsing combat operations in urbanized terrain.

In January-March, the army went through a traditional comprehensive inspection. Special operations units played the role of a hypothetical aggressor. The new 37th infantry brigade was formed out of reservists, which was a distinctive feature of the event along with the call-up of women (around 50 in total), mostly health professionals. The high draft rate was quite impressive: 1,400 people were called up from the reserve in just two days, March 21–22.1

The combat readiness check revealed a split between the army and a significant part of society. A huge number of those bound to military service dodged the draft on falsified grounds. The reservists involved in the exercise left mostly negative or condescending remarks in the electronic and social media.

In 2018, the army was trained in:

The military acted in conditions of unstable communication with command posts. The integrated support system during armed hostilities (reconnaissance, electronic warfare, telecommunication, logistics, technical support, etc.) was checked.

Exercises were held to practice missile strike management with Polonaise multiple rocket launchers in wooded areas, which included simulated launches and rapid redeployment from the launching sites.

The artillery practiced strikes during hours of darkness, accelerated long-distance marches, including at night, and interaction with UAV units to detect and neutralize hostile sabotage and reconnaissance groups. The experience of the war in Syria was taken into account.

Territorial defense

The assumption that the territorial defense system will be reformed proved to be true. Territorial defense districts were enlarged, and the troops received ZPU-4 anti-aircraft machine guns, Metis anti-tank guided missiles, SPG-9 anti-tank grenade launchers and Vasilek automatic mortars, which proved effective in Donbas and Syria.

Territorial defense troops were trained in mine defense, entry checkpoint control, preparation for defending populated localities, armed protection of defensive bases, urban patrolling and closing gaps during penetration of subversive groups.

Civilian officials practiced organization of defense of populated areas, application of artillery and anti-tank units of the territorial troops and management of territorial defense forces using digital means of communication.

For the most part, territorial defense activities were related to command and control education.

Government communications: of domestic manufacture now

On February 2, 2018, KGB Chairman Valery Vakulchik showed TV reporters a room, which he called a government communications control center (it was probably not). He also presented telecommunication means of domestic manufacture, which are much cheaper than foreign analogues, and can be exported in the future.

In May, Vakulchik demonstrated a Belarusian made mobile phone for secured government communications. Its mass production had allegedly started, he said. The phone can also be exported to friendly countries.

Armed forces buildup

Armed forces development priorities for the period to 2020 were announced in February 2018. They include the enhanced capacity to respond to hybrid war threats and information warfare, special operations and territorial defense. The military began training in conducting operations by dispersed autonomous mobile groups.

The Belarusian army is 40% equipped with up-to-date weapons. The task is to increase this proportion to 50%.2 Another problem is that a large number of conscripts do not meet health requirements to serve in the army.3

The armed forces optimization is largely based on the increased numeric strength and improvement of the command and control component. By trimming the overlapping and secondary elements, the military managed to significantly increase personnel and reduce the time of rapid deployment in case of a threat to national security.

It looks like the military are considering the abolition of constantly functioning operational commands attached to designated administrative-geographical locations and their replacement with joint command in the areas under threat.

Development of the military industrial sector

The JV Aviation Technologies and Complexes founded by the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus and the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) was officially registered in April 2018. The company is going to launch mass production of items of domestic and AVIC’s design. AVIC is known for its Wing Loong multipurpose reconnaissance-strike long-distant UAV. It has been exported to Egypt, United Arab Emirates and Kazakhstan, with which Belarus has friendly relations.

The year 2018 will also be remembered for the conflict between the Ukrainian Motor Sich PJSC and the Orsha Aircraft Repair Plant. The Belarusian authorities accused Motor Sich, the major shareholder of the plant, of breaching the investment contract. The parties threw accusations at each other and even initiated criminal proceedings. In the end, Belarus re-nationalized the enterprise.

Judging by the available information, Motor Sich managed to defend its financial interests after all. From the very beginning, the Ukrainian investor took on excessive obligations to the Belarusian government and the latter pinned unrealistic hopes on the company, hoping to start domestic helicopter production (and not only that). Due to the hostilities with Ukraine, Russia banned imports of some Ukrainian industrial commodities (including helicopter engines), closing some segments of its market to Ukraine. Motor Sich was no longer much interested in the Belarusian production capacities, which certainly affected the Orsha plant.

On May 2–4, Belarus and Kazakhstan held a joint command and staff exercise with the rocket troops and artillery at the Sary-Shagan testing range.4 Belarus delegated units armed with the Polonaise multiple rocket launchers and Tochka-U short-range missiles, about 100 units of equipment and over 200 personnel in total. Given the small number of personnel and the large amount of equipment, the exercise was more likely of research or advertising nature.

Last year, financial problems of defense enterprises were publicly admitted for the first time. Some companies were said to be on the verge of insolvency.

In August, Oleg Dvigalev had to step down as chairman of the State Military-Industrial Committee of Belarus. He was replaced by Roman Golovchenko, who has experience of working in the defense industry and the diplomatic service. The goals set to his agency are (1) to design high-tech weapons and military hardware; (2) expand the range of finished hardware prototypes of Belarusian manufacture, which includes small arms and ordnance, and (3) expand the range of exported items.

On October 5, Alexander Lukashenko watched a presentation of new Belarusian prototypes and made several statements about national security. He once again spoke about UAVs (including strike ones), high-precision missiles, small arms and ammunition of domestic manufacture as the defense industry priorities.5

In October-December, in collaboration with the Ministry of Defense and the National Academy of Sciences, the Military-Industrial Committee organized a training course for drone operators.6 It was supervised by the Security Council, Ministry of Defense and Military-Industrial Committee. Some adjustments were made to the UAV prototypes based on the findings made during the training.

The Military-Industrial Committee reported in late December that exports of commodities and services increased from USD 960 million in 2017 to 1.027 billion in 2018.7 Supplies to Azerbaijan, which received two batches of Polonaises last year, largely contributed to this achievement.

Law and order in the focus of attention

In 2018, the Prosecutor’s Office actively monitored the compliance with law in the army and preventing hazing as never before. Representatives of the Office conducted an outreach campaign in the largest garrisons of the country and anonymous questioning of conscripts regarding acts of harassment, inspected the service and living environment, assessed the effectiveness of officers and commanders’ performance, etc. In the first quarter of 2018 alone, prosecutors held 188 events with the military.8

The KGB military counterintelligence was subjected to criticism. An interdepartmental meeting on strengthening military discipline was held in June. Attending the meeting were officers of the Minsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office and KGB military counterintelligence chiefs.

An interdepartmental meeting on legality and law and order in the army took place in October under the chairmanship of Prosecutor of the Brest region Viktor Klimov. The police (not the KGB) was tasked to redouble efforts to detect law infringements in the army.

Conclusion

The year 2018 showed a number of constraints to national defense, resulting from changes in the external environment. The ineffectiveness of Defense Ministry’s information policy creates serious problems with calling up the residents of large cities to reserve exercises. The involuntary draft institution needs adjustments to elevate its status. Much is yet to be done to overcome quite the negative public sentiment in relation to military service.

The authorities are making efforts to resolve pressing issues, but the highly bureaucratized public administration system is often generally unable to make proactive decisions and only loses time, the main resource it has. The problem of compliance with the law remains acute.

Judging by last year’s army training priorities, emphasis was put on extinguishing local and small-scale, yet highly intensive hostilities. The ability to rapidly increase the number of military personnel is of paramount importance.

Belarus finally obtained its own secured government communications system. It took considerable effort to set up the national cryptographic school. It is possible to assert now that dependence on external partners in communications security has been minimized.

The conflict in Ukraine showed the critical importance of having stable and reliable government communications. In the current situation, solutions offered by Belarusian specialists could be in demand in post-Soviet countries, primarily in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, which are traditional partners of Belarus.

Creation of a strike UAV was among the priorities of the domestic defense industry. Development reports are expected in the near future.

The military industrial complex has exhausted its growth potential due to extensive development, since access to the Russian market is not expanding. Therefore, the focus will be on a wider product range and competitiveness of Belarusian defense products.