Lukashenko unveils structure of Belarus' national defense system

“I have long said: we are a relatively small country in terms of territory and population. We are not Russia, much less China, India or NATO. We cannot afford the kind of army that is needed for war, so we must adapt,” Aleksandr Lukashenko emphasized.

The president remarked that the country's defense is the primary responsibility of the Armed Forces, but if necessary, territorial defense and people's militia will be quickly called up. In this case, the number of defenders will increase many times over. “Yet, for this we need to have unity and discipline in the country. We have this,” the head of state said.

Aleksandr Lukashenko gave an instruction to update the tasks for territorial defense taking into account today's conditions of military operations. “People's militia are people who do not join the army, but are good at handling weapons, can defend their home. We have a clear system in place. We keep reviewing it: the state secretary [of the Security Council] is in charge of checking everything thoroughly - from people's militia to the Armed Forces. In other words, we have created a defense system for our country,” the commander-in-chief said.

Earlier, the head of state gave a task to keep track of people who served in special units of law enforcement agencies. “We will check all units in the near future. I insist on this because this special training cost us a lot of money. Training such special forces is truly expensive,” the president explained.

The Belarusian Society of Hunters and Fishermen also has tasks: everyone who owns a weapon must be ready to defend the country if necessary. “We have a lot of hunters, they should have their own unit with their own weapons. And we should keep an eye on what is formed and how. Who can train snipers better than they can? Therefore, we need to make use of this. We cannot do it the way the Soviet Union did: it allocated money to build a military town, recruited a lot of people, trained them like in the army to teach them to fight. We will ruin our economy if we follow this path, and our people will be poor. We cannot invest huge money in such a training system,” Aleksandr Lukashenko noted.