English

Lukashenka defends high levels of military spending

 

Alyaksandr Lukashenka defended Friday his government’s military spending, saying that money was not an issue when national security was at stake.

As they say, the people who do not want to feed their own army will have to feed a foreign one, Mr. Lukashenka said while visiting a military training ground near Hrodna within the framework of a command-and-post exercise held under his orders between October 31 and November 4 for the purpose of assessing the efficiency of the country`s territorial defense system.

Mr. Lukashenka said that his critics were hardly “our supporters” willing to preserve the “immunity and independence of the country.”

“I am president and you have elected me. So, it’s is me who will decide whether they [high levels of military spending] are needed, whether they are feasible and whether a high price should be paid,” he stressed. “I know how to spend money. I will figure this out on my own, I know more.”

He said that expenses on military exercises anyhow were not worryingly high. But when soldiers need to be trained to use advanced weapons, money must be spent, he noted. “Otherwise, we had better throw away these weapons. We don’t need them once we don`t have the opportunity to provide training. But the weapons should be state-of-the-art to show others, our enemies, that we are able to defend our land.”

Commenting on speculation that that the purpose of the command-and-post exercise was to try to frighten NATO, Mr. Lukashenka revealed that NATO held a “very high” opinion of Belarus’ Armed Forces. “Quite clever people serve with NATO and they know well the worth of our Armed Forces.”

He said that Belarus should maintain “this level,” calling NATO a potential rival.

“We have created the territorial defense system, which is cheaper than a professional army,” said Mr. Lukashenka. “We will train our people, and in a year we will have ideal forces, which will total as many as 120,000 people in time of war.”

He said that he had awarded major general`s shoulder straps to the heads of the regional governments and the Minsk City Executive Committee, noting that they, as chairs of the local territorial defense councils, would be in charge of economic and defense matters during wartime.

Maintaining the Territorial Defense Forces requires less money than recruiting a professional army, as the former forces consist of civilians who are mobilized in wartime and only need to be trained in time of peace, he said.

Mr. Lukashenka reiterated that businesspeople should be recruited to the Territorial Defense Forces. “They have to defend their own property, apart from the family and our land. These are very able people and there are a lot of our military men among them.” // BelaPAN