MINSK, 23 June (BelTA) - Belarus is ready to replace imported spare parts for military hardware and weapons, Belarus' Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko told the media as he took part in the international defense technology expo MILEX 2021 on 23 June, BelTA has learned.
“All the forecasts that we made and that the president repeatedly spoke about have proved to be correct today. In some critical areas we must rely on our ourselves, no matter how difficult it can be, because any dependence can always be used as an element of pressure, especially in such important areas as defense and security. The Russian Federation has recently encountered this problem too. Thanks to its experienced designers, the country managed to shift focus in time and replace the spare parts it used to import,” said Roman Golovchenko.
According to him, Belarus is ready for this too. "The military-industrial complex has long been tasked with relying, as much as possible, on its own potential and the potential of our strategic partners and allies such as the Russian Federation and China. We have followed this policy, and today what we see here is the confirmation that the chosen tactics has proved right. If we had not done this before, we probably would not have seen so many modern samples here now. We consciously took the path of independent development. As I said, in industries where we have no competences in principle or it takes too long to develop them, we rely on our allies," the prime minister said.
The prime minister stressed that the common challenge for all CSTO countries now is independence in the production of electronic component base and microelectronics. “There is something to work on here. In principle, we have no worries about the other areas. Microelectronics is not a cause for concern either. There are a lot of suppliers and it is necessary to build up our own competences here. Belarus, like Russia, has enough developers. Therefore, we will definitely strengthen this area,” he said.
In terms of scale and goals, participants and infrastructure, MILEX is considered one of the largest expos in the Eastern European region. Since 2001, this large-scale defense industry expo has traditionally attracted the attention of major domestic and foreign manufacturers of military products. Its main goals are to showcase the products of the Belarusian defense industry, innovative solutions, and to demonstrate the capabilities of enterprises in upgrading, overhauling military hardware and providing services to the Armed Forces.
MILEX 2021 is featuring over 300 samples of cutting-edge weapons, military hardware, and special hardware of Belarusian make alone. As many as 177 of them are showcased for the first time. Eighty-eight products are upgraded ones.
