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Ministry of Defense

Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, 180,000 Soviet troops were stationed in the Belorussian SSR; approximately half answered directly to the General Staff in Moscow rather than to Belorussian Military District commanders. This situation changed only in May 1992 when Belarus abolished the Belorussian Military District and subordinated all troops on its soil to its own Ministry of Defense.

The Belarusian armed forces officially came into existence on January 1, 1993, the day after all service personnel with Belarusian citizenship, which excluded the great majority of the officers, had taken an oath of loyalty to Belarus. Because there was no stipulation that only Belarusian citizens could serve in the armed forces, they were Belarusian forces in name only, and there was concern among groups such as the BPF that in time of crisis the loyalty of these forces might lie with Russia rather than with Belarus.

A component of this concern was the ethnic composition of the armed forces. At the end of 1992, ethnic Russians accounted for nearly half the Belarusian conscripts and some 80 percent of the officer corps. Since then, the ethnic composition of the officers has been changing gradually in favor of Belarusians as a result of legislative acts, but the process is slow. It will take years before the republic has its own Belarusian-led armed forces that are politically reliable and dedicated to Belarusian nationhood.

Another aspect of the nationality issue was that in 1993 some 40,000 Belarusian natives served as officers in the armed forces of other former Soviet republics. Many of them wished to return home for either patriotic or economic reasons, but such possibilities were limited because of the shortage of housing and the republic's scheduled military reductions in general. What concerned the Belarusian Ministry of Defense, which was dominated by Russians, was an announcement in the spring of 1992 by the Coordinating Council of the Union of Belarusian Soldiers that these officers were willing to fight against Russian military aggression in Belarus.

The decomposition of the USSR exerted serious influence on the fate of Belarus' and its armed forces. On 27 July 1990 the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR accepted declaration about the state sovereignty of republic, and on 25 August 1991, immediately after the August events in Moscow, passed the law "about giving of status of the constitutional law of the declaration of Supreme Soviet of Belorussian SSR about the state sovereignty of Belorussian Soviet socialist republic." On the basis of law of 19 September 1991, the BSSR began to be named as " republic Belarus".

On 8 December, 1991, the Presidents of Russia, Ukraine and the chairman of Supreme Soviet of republic Belarus, the head of the governments of these republics signed agreement about the creation of the Commonwealth the Independent States (CIS). The question about the creation of its own armed forces came up to the agenda in the republic.

Because of Belarus's geopolitical importance and its absorption of troops withdrawn from the countries of the former Warsaw Pact, it was the most militarized republic of the former Soviet Union. Even in 1993, it had a ratio of one soldier to forty-three civilians, compared with one to ninety-eight in Ukraine and one to 634 in Russia. In real numbers, this meant an estimated 243,000 troops. In addition, there was a serious imbalance in the officer-to-conscript ratio: three officers for every seven conscripts. For a republic with 10 million people, such excessively large armed forces were not necessary, and expenditure for their equipment was unacceptable. Moreover, their general number in accordance with the totals of the Helsinki agreement of 1992 should not have exceeded 100,000 soldiers. Thus between 1992 and 1996 more than 250 military formations, which went under the jurisdiction of Belarus, they ended their existence or were seriously reformed, and the number of soldiers decreased three-fold and in 1997 was stabilized on the mark into 83 thousand people.

On 20 March 1992 the decision of government "about the creation of the armed forces of republic Belarus'" was accepted. During the same day the parliament of the republic accepted the law " about the armed forces of republic Belarus' ", on the basis of which began their formation. During November 1992 Supreme Soviet accepted laws "about the defense", "about universal military duty and military service", and "about status of soldiers".

And on 6 December 1992, at 10-1 session of the twelfth convocation the parliamentarians of the republic accepted the military doctrine. Among the states of the CIS Belarus was the first that accepted such a document. Thus, the republic for the first time accepted the system of the basic views on averting of war, preservation of peace, defense building, preparation of the country and its armed forces for the repulsion of aggression, on the methods of conducting the armed combat on the protection of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

In accordance with the legislation, the former troops were reformed by the armed forces of Belarus into two stages. On the first (from 1992) they were reduced to 30,000 people, their operational goals were determined, and the basic leading documents were developed. In the second stage (1993-1994), the reduction of the army in essence was completed, structural conversions were realized, and the troop command and control system was reformed.

In accordance with its stated goal of becoming a neutral state and its new defense doctrine, the government decreased the number of its troops by some 60 percent, from 243,000 to 96,000 (including up to 22,000 officers) by the beginning of 1995; the armed forces also employed 64,000 civilians in early 1995. Further reductions were expected to reduce the total armed forces to a strength of 75,000 or even 60,000. Such a move, however, presents a difficult political problem because of a lack of housing and employment for demobilized service members, who, regardless of their present citizenship, are eligible to become Belarusian citizens and voters. By the year 2005, the total number of armed forces must compose 65 thousand people (50 thousand soldiers and 15 thousand civilian personnel).

Women serve in the armed forces as well, although in much smaller numbers than men. They face the same physical and other testing requirements as men. In mid-1995 there were approximately 3,000 servicewomen, many of whom worked at headquarters as secretaries.

In 1995 conscription was for eighteen months, with alternative service available. In 1994 reserve forces numbered approximately 289,500 members with military service in the previous five years. In the early 1990s, an issue in the training of troops was the teaching and use of the Belarusian language. There was resistance in the Ministry of Defense and in the armed forces themselves to the idea of using the Belarusian language; officials claimed that the Belarusian armed forces were being "politicized." But little progress had been made in 1994 toward the use of Belarusian in the military, as called for by the draft law entitled About the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus, which stipulated the use of both the Belarusian and Russian languages, with a gradual transition to Belarusian.

The defense budget for 1994 was estimated at 686.6 billion rubles, accounting for 4.5 percent of GDP and reflecting a slight increase in real terms over the previous few years. One reason for this was that Belarus had obligated itself in a treaty to cover a larger share of the costs in maintaining the army units of other former Soviet republics stationed on its soil. Another was that the government made large outlays in acquiring strategic stockpiles, mostly of fuel reserves.

The first step of the final stage of the reformation of the armed forces was the differentiation of the authorities of the ministry of defense and General Staff. To the ministry of defense as the organ of state control, went the responsibility of implementation of state policy on questions of defense. Exercising the general leadership of the armed forces, the ministry of defense bears full weight of responsibility for their building and development, and also preparation for the accomplishment of the objectives of the armed protection of sovereignty and territorial integrity of state. The General Staff, as the central organ of military control, will accomplish operational control of the armed forces. Furthermore, in its scope are located questions of the organization of interaction and coordination of the activity of the armed forces with other military formations in the sphere of the guarantee of defense of state.

By 2001 the new Minister of Defense was experiencing success in the area of military reform. Planned changes include combining the Air and Air defense Forces, downsizing the force structure about 30% from 83,000 to 60,000, transitioning from a conscript to a contract force, and modernizing the command and control structure by creating a Ground Forces Command between the Ministry of Defense and the units in the field. Implementation of these reforms will take an unspecified amount of time.

In December 2001 the transition of the armed forces to the two-fold structure - Ground Forces, and the Air Force (VVS) and Troops of Air Defense (PVO) -- was completed.