Opinions & Interviews

BARANOVICHI DISTRICT, 19 October (BelTA) – When they participate in international competitions, Belarusian military personnel demonstrate professional skills on par with those of armies of large countries. Belarusian Defense Minister Andrei Ravkov made the statement as he delivered his report to Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko on 19 October, BelTA has learned.

The report touched upon the performance of Belarusian military during the Tank Biathlon competition that took place in Moscow Oblast in August 2016. It was noted that Belarusian military won several awards during the tournament, yet their performance at some stages of the competition might have been more successful.

The President pointed out that the Belarusian team had lost a race to the Russian team. The Defense Minister explained that the Belarusian tanks had not been as powerful as to beat the Russian team. However, decisions have been made to modernize the tanks in order to demonstrate better performance next year.

Alexander Lukashenko underlined that Belarus needs to win during such prominent competitions because the prestige of the Belarusian army is at stake among other things. “All the military elites and other elites turn up for such events,” added the head of state.

The Defense Minister said: “We demonstrated the best shooting results but we were not quite fast since our tanks had 840hp engines while Russians had 1,130hp engines. But even in these conditions our military managed to win some races ahead of Russians. As far as professionalism is concerned, we were on par with world armies and even surpassed them in some things.”

Andrei Ravkov also said that some military competitions can be held in Belarus, the relevant conditions are available. Alexander Lukashenko backed the proposal saying that such events add a lot to army training and represent a fair performance gauge.