Major General Sergei SIMONENKO: “We Could Take Certain Steps Towards Building up Our Contacts and Strengthening, Among Other things, Military-Technical Cooperation Between the Defense establishments of Our States.”
Defence Turkey: As the National Armament Director / Chief of Armament of Belarus how would you explain your job and official duties? How would you sum up your role?
Major General Sergei SIMONENKO: In general, the Deputy Minister of Defense for Armament, Chief of Armament of the Armed Forces is entrusted with a wide range of duties: participation in making decisions on the further development of the Armed Forces in terms of equipping them with modern weapons, military and special equipment, including organizing the formation of proposals from the Ministry of Defense for the State Armament Program and the State Defense Order; organization of supply of the Armed Forces with weapons, military and special equipment, missiles, ammunition and military-technical property; management of the technical support of the Armed Forces in the course of their daily activities, training for the intended purpose and in the event of repulsing aggression – in wartime; organization of the correct operation of weapons, military and special equipment, including bringing them to the established degree of combat readiness, maintaining the established degree of readiness for their intended use by monitoring their technical condition, carrying out maintenance and routine repairs, organizing their high-quality storage, transportation, training of personnel on the operation and repair of weapons, military and special equipment; organization of restoration of faulty weapons, military and special equipment, support of modernization and creation of new models; ensuring the safety of weapons, military and special equipment, missiles, ammunition, creating safe conditions for their containment; supervising the command-and-control bodies and military units of technical support subordinate to the service (organizing their operational and combat training, solving tasks to ensure the training of the Armed Forces).
The role of the Chief of Armament of the Armed Forces is primarily to maintain the combat readiness of the Armed Forces when it comes to serviceable weapons, military and special equipment in the ranks, and the provision of missiles and ammunition.
Defence Turkey: Could you please provide some key facts about the Ministry of Defense of the Republic? Could you elaborate on the structure, responsibilities and number of personnel working at the Armament Directorate?
Major General Sergei SIMONENKO: The Armament of the Armed Forces includes seven structural divisions. They are collectives of officers and civilian personnel numbering from 10 to 25 people.
The Armaments Headquarters of the Ministry of Defense carries out general planning of the technical support of the Armed Forces in peacetime and in wartime, the development and coordination of the implementation of the Plan for the construction and development of the technical support system of the Armed Forces, planning and carrying out training activities for the purpose of command-and-control bodies and military units of technical support of the Armed Forces.
The Missile and Artillery Armament Division, the Armored Division and the Automobile Division are the supplying bodies of the Armed Forces. They provide troops with appropriate types of weapons, military and special equipment, missiles, ammunition, organize the accumulation and maintenance of established stocks of materiel, issue military-technical equipment to the troops to ensure the operation and repair of weapons, military and special equipment, issue missiles and ammunition for combat training activities, supervise directly subordinate arsenals, bases and depots of weapons and ammunition.
Tasks for the implementation of state purchases of weapons, military and special equipment and military-technical property, preparation of proposals from the Ministry of Defense to the State Defense Order, for the implementation of military-technical cooperation of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Belarus with other states and international organizations, as well as the implementation of tasks in the field of export control is entrusted to the division of the procurement and repair of weapons and military equipment of the Armed Forces.
Functions of the Ministry of Defense in organizing the operation and comprehensive military repair of weapons, military and special equipment of the Armed Forces, coordinating the technical support of combat alert, organizing work on standardization and metrology in the Armed Forces, participating in the development and implementation of state programs in the field of ensuring the safe storage and disposal of weapons, military and special equipment, military-technical property, ammunition, as well as control over the timely disposal of ammunition and their components is implemented by the Division of Operation and Repair of Arms and Military Equipment of the Armed Forces.
Analysis of global trends in the development of weapons, the formation of proposals from the Ministry of Defense for the State Armament Program, support of research and development work on the modernization of existing and creation of new models of weapons and military equipment, as well as interaction on the development of modernization and the creation of new models with representatives of republican government bodies and enterprises of the defense sector of the economy of the Republic of Belarus is entrusted with the division of the development of weapons systems of the Armed Forces.
This structure is quite harmonious, efficient and allows solving the tasks facing the armament of the Armed Forces with high quality.
Defence Turkey: What can you tell us about the Belarus defense procurement process? Does Belarus undertake defense procurement through a centralized defense organization within the country´s Ministry of Defense or through a separate government organization as in Turkey?
Major General Sergei SIMONENKO: In the Republic of Belarus, the defense procurement procedure is carried out in strict accordance with the current legislation: The Civil Code of the Republic of Belarus and the Law of the Republic of Belarus “On State Procurements”.
In our country, there is no separate government organization responsible for the procurement of military products. The Ministry of Defense, as well as other law enforcement agencies of the state, has its own body of military administration - the department of the procurement and repair of weapons and military equipment of the Armed Forces, subordinate to the Deputy Minister of Defense for Armaments - the Chief of Armaments of the Armed Forces and carry out centralized purchases of weapons, military, and special equipment within the framework of the Armed Forces. This greatly simplifies the procurement process itself and reduces the time spent on it.
The purchase of military products is carried out by announcing a tender (request for price proposals), or by organizing an open electronic auction.
Defence Turkey: Decision making about arms procurement and deployment is a political process. Can you elaborate on the decision making (bidder and product selection) process that applied at defense tenders / procurement in Belarus?
Major General Sergei SIMONENKO: In the Republic of Belarus, the process of public procurement of military products is a rather well functioning and transparent mechanism, which is divided into several stages: procurement planning, procurement procedure and conclusion of a contract based on the results of the procurement procedure.
Public procurement planning in the Ministry of Defense is carried out through the formation, approval, and maintenance of an annual public procurement plan. So, annually, based on the needs of the Armed Forces, the Ministry
of Defense draws up an annual public procurement plan for the coming year. After its approval by the Minister of Defense, the plan is posted in the public domain on the electronic trading platform, except for information constituting state secrets.
The posted annual public procurement plan is the basis for conducting public procurement procedures. After that, within the established time frame, the Division of Procurement and Repair of Arms and Military Equipment of the Armed Forces summarizes proposals from potential suppliers of goods and services.
To consider the proposals received for compliance with the established requirements, to evaluate and compare them, a commission has been formed in the Ministry of Defense, which, according to the established criteria, determines the winning participant, and makes the decision on the public procurement. The final stage is the conclusion of a contract based on the results of the procurement procedure.
Defence Turkey: What can you tell us about the national defense policy of Belarus?
Major General Sergei SIMONENKO: The Republic of Belarus proceeds from the fact that none of the states is not an enemy.
Our country condemns any military conflict as a means of implementing policy and adheres to the principle of the peaceful settlement of disputes.
At the same time, the Belarusian state will defend its national interests using all available means, including through the use of military force, and reserves the right to take a set of preventive measures of strategic containment in order to prevent an attack or neutralize an internal armed conflict.
The use of military force is viewed as an extreme measure after all the possibilities for taking political, diplomatic, legal, economic, informational, ideological, and other measures to ensure military security have been exhausted.
Defence Turkey: Can you elaborate on the constitutional task of the Armed Forces of Belarus?
Major General Sergei SIMONENKO: The Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus is intended to ensure military security and armed protection of the Republic of Belarus, its independence, territorial integrity, sovereignty, and constitutional order.
Defence Turkey: As the Chief of Armament, you are responsible for national defense developments and for coordinating force modernization. So, your task is closely related to the implementation of the 2016-2020 State Armament Program. Can you elaborate on the results of the 2016-2020 State Armament Program? What has been achieved under the Program? Are you satisfied with the results?
Major General Sergei SIMONENKO: I believe that the goal of the state armament program for 2016-2020 has been achieved.
The implementation of the measures of the state program made it possible to equip the units of the Armed Forces with modern models of weapons, military, and special equipment, to increase the combat potential of the Armed Forces, the efficiency and reliability of command and control, capabilities for radar, radio-technical and electronic reconnaissance, electronic warfare, personnel protection, unit mobility.
As part of the implementation of the State Armament Program, multirole fighters Su-30SM were delivered to the troops in a planned manner, Yak-130 operational trainer, Mi-8MTV-5 helicopters, Polonaise multiple launch rocket systems, T-72B3 tanks, BTR-70MB1 armored personnel carriers, Tor-M2 anti-aircraft missile systems, Cayman armored vehicles, Rosa-RB-M, Sopka-2,Protivnik-G radar systems, radio relay stations and unmanned aerial vehicles of various modifications, a large number of personal protective equipment for military personnel and other modern highly effective weapons and equipment, weapons, military and special equipment in service with the Armed Forces.
Also, at the expense of the funds allocated under the state armament program, the tasks of maintaining serviceability and restoring the resource of the existing fleet of weapons, military and special equipment were solved. Besides the optimal expenditure balance on maintaining the weapons in combat readiness and the cost of their development is provided.
In general, I am satisfied with the results of the implementation of the state armament program for 2016-2020.
Defence Turkey: When will the State Armament Program for 2021-2025 be submitted for approval?
Major General Sergei SIMONENKO: The State Armament Program for 2021-2025 has already been developed, approved by the Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus and, to this date, it has already begun to be implemented.
To develop this topic I can add, that in the nearest (upcoming) 5-year plan, main attention will be paid to further increasing of the combat effectiveness of the Armed Forces by consistently automating troops and armament process-control systems, increasing the combat capabilities of missile forces and artillery, ground forces and special operations forces, introducing unmanned aerial vehicles, improving communication and navigation support systems.
Defence Turkey: What can you tell about Belarus´ 2021 defense budget?
Major General Sergei SIMONENKO: The Defense establishment of every state would always like to have a budget larger than what is actually allocated by the state. At the same time, the military leadership understands that the allocated budget must be within the limits of reasonable sufficiency. I think that the defense budget of the Republic of Belarus is aligned exactly with this category. It allows not only maintaining the existing combat potential of the Armed Forces, but also systematically developing it. In addition, if such a need arises, the country's leadership who pays considerable attention to ensuring the state's defense potential, may take separate decisions on financing certain measures in the interests of the Armed Forces. Therefore, as Deputy Minister of Defense for Armament, I think that the defense budget for 2021 is sufficient.
Defence Turkey: Can you list the most important procurement programs for Belarus and their envisaged time frames?
Major General Sergei SIMONENKO: For the Republic of Belarus, the most important program in the field of procurement and armament modernization, military and special purpose equipment is the State Armaments Program, which is developed every 5 years and is implemented through the accomplishment of the annual State Defense Order.
Also, in terms of ensuring the safety of storage and the required conditions for keeping stocks of arsenal, missiles, ammunition and military-technical equipment, recycling of non-usable ammunition. Last year we completed
the implementation of two state programs: The State Program for ensuring the safe storage of armament, military and special purpose equipment and a State program for the recycling of non-usable armament, military and special purpose equipment and ammunition.
The implementation of measures of these state programs made it possible to guarantee the safe storage of stocks of armament, missiles and ammunition in the arsenals and bases of the Armed Forces, significantly improve the conditions for keeping armaments, military and special purpose equipment, missiles and ammunition through the repair and construction of storage depots, optimize the procedure for placing logistic stocks, to improve the quality of maintenance and the efficiency of repairing of armaments, military and special purpose equipment by equipping arsenals and armaments bases, military maintenance and repair points with modern production technological equipment.
The current State Armament Program for 2021-2025 is aimed at further improving and updating the existing fleet of armaments and equipment, maintaining the forces and means of the entire technical support system at a level that ensures a quick and high-quality accomplishment of tasks according to the intended purpose.
Defence Turkey: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a huge global disruption to critical defense operations and programs. How did Belarus conduct defense and security procurements in the context of COVID-19 in 2020?
Major General Sergei SIMONENKO: Of course, as we can see from the media, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a certain decline in the economic level in many countries and resulted in the failure to implement a number of projects, as countries were forced to take appropriate measures to stabilize the economic situation.
I would like to note that, thanks to the political course and tactic of actions to combat COVID-19 chosen in the Republic of Belarus, the pandemic did not significantly influence the implementation of planned measures in the field of procurement and modernization of armaments and military equipment for the Armed Forces.
We maintain close contacts with both domestic military manufacturers and our Russian colleagues. These contacts actually, did not stop.
In August 2020, a delegation of our Armed Forces and industrial enterprises of the defense sector of the economy of the Republic of Belarus took an active part in the international military-technical forum "Army-2020", held in the Russian Federation where a number of contracts were signed for the further supply of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus of modern peace’s of armament, military and special purpose equipment of Russian production.
This year, the technical equipment of the Armed Forces also continues as planned, without any adjustments.
Defence Turkey: What is the domestic defense industry like currently? Could you provide some key facts about the military industry of the Republic of Belarus for our readers? Are there both state-run and private companies in the Belarus Defense Industry Sector or are 100% of all enterprises operating in the Belarus defense sector state-run?
Major General Sergei SIMONENKO: The defense industry in the Republic of Belarus is supervised by the State Authority for Military Industry, therefore, the question of the functioning of the defense sector of the economy should be addressed to representatives of this department. I can add that we are very closely cooperating with our State Authority for Military Industry in all areas, especially those that are traditionally strong in our republic - communications, automated process-control systems, radar ranging, electromagnetic warfare and others.
Answering on the second part of the question, I will add that there are no restrictions on the participation of private enterprises in tenders for the development and supply of armaments, military, and special purpose equipment for the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus. In our state, all interested enterprises of any form of ownership, in absolutely equal conditions, have the right to take part in and participate in tenders held by the Ministry of Defense to determine supplies of military goods. The main requirement is that all participants in the procurement procedure meet the requirements of the current legislation of the Republic of Belarus, and they must have all special permits to carry out activities related to military goods.
Defence Turkey: How do you evaluate the current state of Belarusian-Turkish cooperation in the field of defense? What do you think could be done to increase the level of this cooperation? What is your forecast for the future?
Major General Sergei SIMONENKO: From my point of view, Belarusian-Turkish cooperation in the field of defense is at the beginning of its development. I believe, that in the future we could take certain steps towards building up our contacts and strengthening, among other things, military-technical cooperation between the defense establishments of our states.
Without limiting ourselves to mutual participation in the “MILEX” and “IDEF” armaments exhibitions, we could exchange experience in organizing the solution to problems of technical support for the armed forces. We are also interested in how the technical support system of the Turkish Armed Forces functions, how decisions are made on the technical re-equipment (reengineering) of combat units, how the repairing of armaments, military, and special purpose equipment that out of order due to combat damage and technical reasons, and many other issues is organized.
We could exchange experience in organizing the safe storage of armaments, military and special purpose equipment, missiles, and ammunition, organizing its repair, using modern diagnostic and production equipment. I believe, that such cooperation would be mutually beneficial for our states.
Defence Turkey: What can Belarus do for Turkey and what could Turkey do for Belarus in the defense sphere? Do you think that Turkish companies are sufficiently encouraged to participate in tenders in Belarus?
Major General Sergei SIMONENKO: The Republic of Belarus is always open to constructive dialogue and development of cooperation with other states in areas of mutual interest. At the same time, in the process of working with our partners, we always adhere to the most important principles: ensuring publicity, transparency, fair competition and an impartial attitude towards potential suppliers of goods and services.
Military goods of foreign origin are allowed to participate in public procurement procedures on equal terms with goods of domestic origin. In this regard, we do not exclude the possibility of considering proposals, including from the Turkish side, that would meet our requirements and that would be mutually beneficial for both states.
Defence Turkey: What can you share about the participation of the Government and military-industry sector of the Republic of Belarus in the “IDEF-2021” exhibition, which will be held in August 2021?
Major General Sergei SIMONENKO: Of course, forums of this scale are very important in the development of bilateral relations between states in the field of military-technical cooperation. Forums allow us to look for new partners, exchange experience on key issues in the development and production of armaments. We accepted the invitation, and we are honored to take part in the “IDEF-2021” exhibition.
The final format of our participation is still being determined, but the delegation of the Belarusian side from the Armament Headquarters of the Armed Forces will include acting officials responsible for the development of armaments, military and special purpose equipment as well as issues regarding procurement.
Defence Turkey: Do you want to add anything else as a message for our readers?
Major General Sergei SIMONENKO: First of all, I would like to thank you for your interest in developing friendly bilateral relations in the area of ensuring the defense capability of our states. We are always ready to openly cooperate on mutually beneficial terms in the field of improving armaments. I would like to wish your media outlet further creative success and best wishes
