TSAMTO, August 22. On August 21, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko held a meeting on the development of rocket engineering in the republic.
According to the press service of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Belarus, the head of state drew attention to the dynamics of the level of military threats and a significant increase in military spending by Western neighbors. According to the president, this forces us to constantly pay close attention to the issue of Belarus' defense capability, including within the framework of the Union State.
The president guided the participants of the event to a serious conversation about further steps in the development of rocket science in Belarus.
"The meeting is devoted to a serious issue – the issue of modernization and development of rocket engineering in Belarus," he said.
At the same time, the country's relatively small experience in this complex industry, which was formed, among other things, with the support of Russia, should be taken into account.
"Like unmanned aircraft, this industry is relatively young for the military-industrial complex, we created it literally from scratch. We have achieved something, something did not work out or is not working out. As in other sectors of the economy, we act as efficiently as possible based on available financial resources. This is above all," Alexander Lukashenko said.
According to the President, it is necessary to decide at the meeting where and how to move forward in this direction, taking into account the forms and methods of warfare in modern conditions. The President drew attention to another significant aspect: "This is also important in connection with my visit to the People's Republic of China and my conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping (we are planning such a meeting). Why? Because we started and continued rocket engineering in close connection with the Chinese military-industrial complex, and now we have contacts."
The State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus, Lieutenant General Alexander Volfovich, spoke about what was reported to the president.
According to him, "the meeting was devoted to the creation of missile production, equipping our Armed Forces with the most modern means of armed struggle in this area. Therefore, the President was informed about the issues related to the development of the missile production program in our country, which is coming to an end this year. This program was adopted in 2020 for a five-year term.
What results have been achieved here? What have we done in these five years in terms of equipping our troops with new modern missiles? What indicators have we achieved here? And it was necessary to make a decision whether to extend the program, develop this line of activity in the future, or maybe buy it.
I will say that five years ago we, in fact, started from scratch. There has never been a rocket production in Belarus, we did not do this, it was not necessary. We are a peaceful country – we produced tractors, BelAZ trucks, MAZES, buses. But life pushes us to the fact that every state should think about issues of defense capability. Therefore, it was decided to start building their own missiles."
Alexander Volfovich spoke about the Belarusian missile system and its modernization
According to him, "we have created our first operational and tactical missile system together with the People's Republic of China - Polonaise. It has already been successfully upgraded at our enterprises. This is a state-of-the-art complex. The range of the missile was 200 km, today it is 300 km. This is a precision weapon.
Of course, any weapon requires adjustments and changes. Questions are already being raised about equipping these missiles with nuclear warheads. And how to integrate the technologies of the Oreshnik, maybe some kind of joint missiles. How to adjust and work together with the Russian side in this direction, creating a modern rocket."
At the same time, he stressed that "this is not some kind of threat to someone. We are watching how our neighbors, like the Americans, and Western countries are creating similar complexes with a range of 600 kilometers or more. Therefore, of course, we need to keep moving in this direction."
The message is publicly available on the website of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Belarus.
