Lukashenko explains his vision of Belarusian militia

While talking to reporters, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko explained why it was necessary to set up a militia and what the militia will be like, BelTA has learned. Aleksandr Lukashenko reminded that the decision in favor of creating territorial defense troops had been made some time before. “Because no one will defend your own house like you do,” he remarked. However, Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed that weapons must not be handed out without control the way it happened in Ukraine.

“All our territorials are organized into regiments and battalions. We know their names and all their data. And weapons have been stockpiled for them – for every district and every battalion,” he explained.

Negative Ukrainian experience when they had to draft senior-age men and people without military service experience was also taken into account. “And I thought that we need this militia, a group of people in every rural council. There will not be many of them.

Maybe 50 people. But they also need to have their own weapons in storage somewhere. We will draft them for training – they will take their assault rifles (primarily assault rifles, grenade launchers, and pistols) so that they could protect their homes,” Aleksandr Lukashenko explained.

If armed hostilities break out, militia units could be converted into a partisan movement, he believes. “Militia can be a reserve for territorial defense,” he supposed. The president instructed the corresponding officials to think about how militia will be organized and how militia personnel will be trained how to handle the main kinds of weapons.