Alyaksandr Lukashenka said that Belarus intends to continue developing short- and medium-range missiles. He made the statement while speaking at the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly.
In his view, the country needs to develop its own missile production, while strategic missiles are not required for Belarus.
“Our Union, with our main ally, and our friend, the People’s Republic of China, have such missiles. God forbid anyone touches the ‘red button’ of these missiles — that would be a world war. After such a war, the planet would hardly remain in our orbit. God forbid, of course. These are weapons of deterrence,” he said.
According to him, Belarus will focus on creating and modernizing short- and medium-range missiles. As an example, Lukashenka cited the Polonez missile system, which will be improved taking into account the development of electronic warfare capabilities.
“But we are creating short- and medium-range missiles, and Polonez is an example of this. It needs to be improved, because the situation has changed greatly and electronic warfare capabilities are extremely powerful. We need to protect this missile so that it flies even more accurately, so that it can fly through a window, as I once said. We are working on this today.
In the coming years, we will receive a more advanced so-called Polonez. But we must produce it ourselves. We made our own Polonez — the latest versions — ourselves. Well, if we know how to make it, then we need to improve it. This is our task — to protect the missile from the impact of electronic warfare systems, and we will do this. These are the directions for each area, or rather, these are the programs for each direction: we just need to take them up and go deeper,” he said.