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By Stijn Mitzer and Joost Oliemans
The possible participation of Belarus in the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War has been speculated about on more than one occasion. Yet others argue that Belarus is already a participant in the war simply by allowing Russia to stage a part of the invasion from its territory and by allowing Russian missile launchers stationed inside the country to fire at targets inside Ukraine. Nonetheless, with a direct Belarusian participation in the war all but certain to trigger a chain of events that would ultimately see the end of the Belarusian regime, President Lukashenko is likely to do everything in his power to prevent an increased Belarusian participation (i.e. providing troops) in the war in Ukraine.
For all the talk of war, fairly little information has been divulged about the status of the Belarusian Army. The Belarusian Armed Forces, much like Ukraine prior to the 2014 Russian takeover of Crimea and the War in Donbas, has seen a gradual decline of its combat capabilities due to numerous downsizings and the retirement of ageing equipment with no replacements. But while the Ukrainian Armed Forces managed to secure enough funding to at least undertake a number of upgrade projects of its slowly dilapidating inventory, Belarus has failed to allocate any substantive budget whatsoever to keep its extant armament from fading into oblivion.
Though Belarusian defence enterprises have come up with a number of modernisation
programmes to address the widespread obsolescence of the Belarusian
Army's equipment inventory, a lack of funding has meant that very little of these have ever been acquired by Belarus itself. Much of the scarcely available funding has been
used for the purchase of combat aircraft and air defence systems, most
often acquired at friendly prices from Russia. The Ground Forces have
been the recipient of 25 T-72B3 Obr. 2016 MBTs and some 65 BTR-82A
IFVs from Russia, while China has donated 22 EQ2058s and an unknown
number of CS/VN3 IMVs since 2012. China is
also the source of the technology behind the Belarusian Polonez guided
MRL/SRBM system, which entered service with the Belarusian Army in 2015.
Products
of the country's well-established defence industry have also found
their way into the inventory of the Ground Forces in limited numbers. The
Caiman reconnaissance vehicle (a modern derivate of the BRDM-2) and the
Volat-1 IMV have both been accepted into service while the Russian
Tigr-M IMV entered production in Belarus as the Lis-PM, with small
numbers of them entering service with the Belarusian Army. A number of
BTR-70 APCs have also been upgraded BTR-70MB1 standard. These BTRs subsequently entered service with Belarus' Airborne and Air Assault Brigades, replacing the BMD-1 IFVs and BTR-D APCs previously in use.
This
list attempts to list all AFV types currently in service with the
Belarusian Army. This list only includes AFVs visually confirmed to be in service with Belarus' Armed Forces. Products of the country's arms industry that haven't actually entered service with the Belarusian Armed Forces are not included in this list, neither are trucks and jeeps.
(Click on the equipment to get a picture of them in Belarusian service)
Tanks
T-72 'Ural' (Limited numbers still used for training)- T-72A Early (Limited numbers still used for training. Others in reserve)
- T-72A Mid (Limited numbers still used for training. Others in reserve)
- T-72A Late (Limited numbers still used for training. Others in reserve)
- T-72AV
- T-72B (Can be equipped with slat armour, cope cage and cope bucket)
- T-72B Obr. 1990
T-72B3 Obr. 2016
Armoured Fighting Vehicles
Infantry Fighting Vehicles
- BMP-1(P) (Limited numbers still used for training. Others in reserve)
- BMP-2 Obr. 1980 (Can be equipped with slat armour)
- BMP-2 Obr. 1984 (Can be equipped with slat armour)
- BMD-1 (Decommissioned after their replacement by the BTR-70MB1 APC and placed in reserve)
- BTR-82A
Armoured Personnel Carriers
- BTR-D (Decommissioned after their replacement by the BTR-70MB1 APC and placed in reserve)
- BTR-70
BTR-70MB1 (Can be equipped with slat armour)- BTR-80 (Can be equipped with slat armour)
Infantry Mobility Vehicles
- GAZ Tigr-M ''Lis-PM''
- MZKT-4190100 Volat V1
DongFeng EQ2050F ''Bogatyr'' (Can be fitted with an Adunok RWS)- Dajiang CS/VN3 ''Drakon''
Command Posts And Communications Stations
- BMP-1KSh Command And Staff Vehicle
- R-145BM1 Command Vehicle
- BTR-60PU-12M Air Defence Command Vehicle
- 9S470 Air Defence Command Post (For Buk)
- 9S457 Air Defence Command Post (For S-300V) (Not yet seen)
- R-142 Communications Station
- P-240MB Caiman-KAS Communications Station
- R-186 Bogatyr-2 Communications Station
- R-186 Drakon Communications Station
- R-443 Voskhod Communications Station
- R-434 Communications Station
- R-414MBRP Sosna-2 Communications Station
- Gorizont Troposcatter
- Unknown Communications Vehicle (1)
- Unknown Communications Vehicle (2)
Engineering Vehicles And Equipment
- BREM-1 Armoured Recovery Vehicle
- BTS-4A Armoured Recovery Vehicle
BREM-Ch ''BREM-4'' Armoured Recovery Vehicle- BREM-K Armoured Recovery Vehicle
- IMR-2(M) Combat Engineering Vehicle
- BAT-2 Heavy Engineering Vehicle
- MDK-3 Trench-Digging Vehicle
- PTS-2 Tracked Amphibious Transport
- UR-67 Mine Clearing Charge
- UR-77 'Meteorit' Mine Clearing Vehicle
- PZM-2 Trench Digger
- IRM 'Zhuk' Engineer Reconnaissance Vehicle
- BRDM-2RKh Chemical Reconnaissance Vehicle
- GMZ-3 Minelayer
- ZS-82 PsyOps Vehicle
- T-55 Firefighting Tank
- BMM-80 "Simfoniya" Armoured Ambulance
- PMP Floating Bridge
- TMM-3 Bridgelayer
Artillery And Air Defence Support Vehicles
- PRP-3 'Val' Artillery Reconnaissance Vehicle (Likely to have been decommissioned)
- 1V18 'Klyon-1' Artillery Command And Forward Observer Vehicle (Likely to have been decommissioned)
- 1V13(M) Battery Fire Control Center
- 1V14 Battery Command And Forward Observer Vehicle
- 9T452 Transporter-Loader (For BM-27 'Uragan' MRL)
- 9T234-2 Transporter-Loader (For BM-30 'Smerch' MRL)
- V-200TZM Transporter-Loader (For Polonez MRL)
- 9T217 Transloader (For 9K33 Osa SAM System)
Self-Propelled Anti-Tank Missile Systems
Towed Artillery
- 100mm MT-12 Rapira Anti-Tank Gun
- 122mm D-30 Howitzer
- 152mm D-20 Howitzer
- 152mm 2A65 Msta-B Howitzer
- 152mm 2A36 Giatsint-B Field-Gun
Self-Propelled Artillery
- 120mm 2S9 Nona (Decommissioned and placed in reserve)
- 122mm 2S1 Gvozdika
- 152mm 2S3(M) Akatsiya
- 152mm 2S5 Giatsint-S
- 152mm 2S19 Msta-S
Multiple Rocket Launchers
Guided Multiple Rocket Launchers
- Polonez [Range: 200km] [CEP: 30m] (Chinese-designed A200 guided rocket produced in Belarus)
- Polonez-M [Range: 290km] [CEP: 45m] (Chinese-designed A300 guided rocket produced in Belarus)
Short-Range Ballistic Missiles
- OTR-21 Tochka-U [Range: 120km] [CEP: 95m] (Slated for replacement by the Chinese-designed M20 SRBM fired from the Polonez launcher)
Anti-Aircraft Guns
Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft Guns
- 23mm ZU-23 On Truck
- 23mm BTR-ZD 'Skrezhet' (Decommissioned and placed in reserve)
- 30mm 2K22(M) Tunguska
Static Surface-To-Air Missile (SAM) Systems
- S-300PT [Range: 75km]
Self-Propelled Surface-To-Air Missile (SAM) Systems
- 9K35 Strela-10 [Range: 5km]
- 9K33 Osa [Range: 15km]
- Tor-M2K [Range: 16km]
- 9K37 Buk [Range: 25km]
- S-300PS [Range: 90km]
- S-300V [Range: 100km]
Electronic Warfare Systems
Radars
- P-18 'Spoon Rest D'
- P-35/37 'Bar Lock'
- PRV-9 'Thin Skin E'
- PRV-16 'Thin Skib B'
- 36D6 'Tin Shield'
- 55ZH6 'Tall Rack'
- 1L22 'Parol'
- 1S80 'Sborka' PPRU ''Dog Ear''
- Rosa-RB-M Ashuluk
- Vostok-3D
- Protivnik-GE
- 9S18 'Kupol' 'Tube Arm' (for Buk)
- 30N6 'Flad Lid' (For S-300PT and S-300PS)Two configurations: (2)
- 76N6 'Clam Shell' (For S-300PT and S-300PS)
- 91N6 'Big Bird' (For S-300PT and S-300PS)
- 9S15M 'Bill Board A' (For S-300V) (No image available)
