Readiness of defense, security bodies seen as crucial to Belarus’ security
MINSK, 29 April (BelTA) – It is important to keep up the readiness of all defense, security, and law enforcement agencies for the sake of ensuring national security, BelTA learned from State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus Aleksandr Volfovich in a military training area.
A combat readiness inspection of the Armed Forces has been in progress since 3 April upon instructions of the head of state. It is supposed to determine the army’s capability to carry out missions in a rapidly changing situation. The units have finished the combat shakedown stage and have moved to designated areas for carrying combat training tasks.
Aleksandr Volfovich
Aleksandr Volfovich talked about why the inspection of the army’s combat readiness had been organized: “Let’s look at what is happening in the world today. The military and political situation in the world and around Belarus is in turmoil and is about to boil. To prevent this boiling temperature from blowing up, it is necessary to organize such events among other things.”
The official noted that the draft of the updated national security concept, which is being discussed at dialogue platforms these days, had sparked interest among citizens. “People are concerned about peace and security. In order to ensure those, it is necessary to maintain combat readiness of all forces and assets meant to ensure national security. In other words, all the structures of the military organization of the state. We keep all these structures at peacetime strength now. We cannot afford deploying the entire military machine at wartime strength. But the army, police, the KGB, the border service, territorial defense, and people’s militia amount to a total of over 1 million people, who will defend the country with weapons in arms if need be,” Aleksandr Volfovich stressed.
At present Belarus’ military component maintains peacetime personnel strength, the minimal number needed for ensuring security. “These scheduled and unscheduled inspections are organized in order to make sure that this system will work well. The decision to check an army unit at full strength had been made. Recruitment of reserve personnel was practiced as well as removal of vehicles and hardware from storage, the transportation of personnel to designated areas. Apart from that, a broad cycle of combat shakedown measures took place,” the official noted.
According to Aleksandr Volfovich, smooth and coordinated actions of commanding officers and the military personnel were observed at stages of the inspection. “In several days the brigade will finish carrying out missions and it will be possible to carry out a detailed analysis. A report for the head of state will be prepared after that,” he said.
