ORSHA DISTRICT, 17 January (BelTA) – An enterprise to make ammunition rounds and repair aircraft missiles has been established near the village of Ustye, Orsha District, Vitebsk Oblast. Plans have been made to build shops in 2020 to make nitrocellulose, assemble armored vehicles and anti-tank guided missiles, BelTA learned from Nikolai Badyuk, head of the Orsha projects division of OOO BSVT – New Technologies.
The project is being implemented by the arms exporter Belspetsvneshtechnika via its daughter enterprise OOO BSVT – New Technologies. The enterprise represents a set of several facilities and locations. One of them is a site where ammunition rounds are assembled. More than ten machine tools with the output capacity of 2,400 and 3,500 rounds per hour are installed there. The enterprise is ready to supply the Belarusian army and the domestic market with ammunition rounds.
“The rounds are subjected to visual examination to find any defects. We also take a look at their size, labels, and weight. We disassemble some of them and check rifling. All the operations are carried out in line with the national standards,” the manufacturing process engineer Aleksandr Levchenko noted.
The enterprise also restores missiles. The Belarusian army has already signed a contract for repairing air-to-air missiles such as R-73 and R-27. “Environmental conditions must be observed rigidly in the shop. Air temperature in the course of missile checking has to be 15-35C, with humidity at 70% at most. The products, equipment, and workers have to be grounded. All the precautions are rigorously followed,” the foreman of the repair shop Sergei Shevchik said.
Nikolai Badyuk added that the Belarusian army initially wanted to scrap the missiles but changed its mind later on. “We restored over 100 missiles and handed them over to the Belarusian army in 2019. The repairs saved a lot of public funds. One R-27 missile costs about $1 million on the international market,” he remarked.
The enterprise also has its own unique testing station where all kinds of tests can be done, where firearm ammunition can be tested, and the speed of bullets can be measured in compliance with international standards.
There are plans to build a nitrocellulose manufacturing shop and a shop to assemble armored vehicles soon. Equipment for the former has already been bought. The construction of the shop to assemble antitank guided missiles is nearing completion. The project is being implemented in line with the presidential decree, which offered a number of incentives for business development in Orsha Distract. Nikolai Badyuk said: “The enterprise grows. New jobs are created. At present we employ 150 people but we intend to at least double the number. One of the benefits of Orsha District is that it is home to specialists, who have worked in ammunition storage and maintenance for many years. They have some basic training and require only additional training.”
