Military & technical cooperation of the Russian Federation with the Republic of Belarus has been performed on a mutually beneficial basis since July 1992.

It includes joint activities aimed at preserving and developing connections established between the defense industries of independent states for the purpose of development and manufacture of military and dual-use products, their mutual deliveries, cooperation and coordination of military products export to the third countries.

Most successful military product deliveries are noted within the framework of the integrated ADMS of the CIS countries and Collective Security Treaty Organization in the area of optical and electro-optic equipment, special communication and jamming equipment, after-sales services, upgrade and repair of armaments and military equipment of Russia, Belarus and the third countries.

A further step in development of the integrated ADMS will be the Belarus-Russia's ‘Oboronpromservice' center of the after-sales service, upgrade and repair of armaments and military equipment, which construction with participation of Rosoboronexport is coming to the end.

Common efforts are made in creation of the integrated system of aviation control, airborne early warning system, development and manufacture of different-purpose radio communication equipment, in the area of diagnostics and repair of electro-optic systems, joint development, production and export to the third countries of modern simulators and thermal vision sights for armored vehicles and anti-tank missile systems. Most successful projects implemented were the mutually developed and manufactured radio communication equipment integrated into the systems of automatic troops control and weapons produced by the Belarus defense industry and the Russian mobile radio communication facilities of the new generation of type ‘Akvedukt' provided for the Belarus armed forces. The PT-76 amphibious tank and the BTR-50 PK full-track amphibious armored personnel carrier that have been upgraded by common efforts of a number of Belarus and Russia's defense companies have rather high perspectives.

The Inter-State Financial and Industrial Group “Defense systems” (Central Company – ‘Defense systems' OJSC) that was set up in accordance with the agreement between the Governments of Russia and Belarus in 2000 continues its work for a comprehensive upgrade of the ‘Pechora' AAMS (S-125) to a level of ‘Pechora-2M', including the work under the inter-state contract with one of the large foreign partners. In 2003-2004, the first lot of the serial systems was manufactured, delivered and successfully handed over to the foreign customer.

At the same time, over the last two years, ‘Defense systems' jointly with a number of other leading design offices and companies of Russia has been conducted purposeful work to develop the radio protection system (RPS) to essentially increase survivability of ‘Pechora-2M'.

For developing, manufacturing and further promotion to the world market placement of competitive military, dual-use and civil products is nowadays necessary to create a common technological space of the Union State, CIS as a whole. A number of the Inter-State Financial and Industrial Groups in Russia and Belarus are contributing to it.

Once established within the framework of the Union State Groups hold the doors open for other companies and organizations of the CIS countries.

The Rosoboronexport cooperation with the entities of military & technical cooperation of Belarus in the interests of the third countries includes repair of armaments and military equipment of the third countries at the Byelorussian repair agencies; acquisition of military products in Belarus, their further import to Russia for remanufacture and re-export to the third countries as parts of the main articles; joint participation in the international tenders.

Rosoboronexport jointly with 'Beltechexport' (CJSC) special exporter of Belarus, ‘Peleng' OJSC developer and manufacturer and 'Tales' French Company have already successfully passed through three stages of demonstration tests in the context of the international tender for delivery of the latest fire control system (FCS) to upgrade the T-72M1 main battle tanks of the Indian Land Forces. Based on the ‘Sosna-U' gunner's day and night multi-channel thermal vision sight that allows the day-and-night firing from all weapons of the tank, including guided missiles, the fire control system greatly increases the fire power of the tank. The absolute advantage of the Russian and Byelorussian proposal is that the upgrade of the Indian T-72M1 tanks will not require investments for re-equipment of the armor production process line in the town of Avadi.

According to the Resolution of the Russian Government, Rosoboronexport will be the organizer of the common Russian exposition, which will be arranged taking into account the most perspective trends in military & technical cooperation of not only Russia and Belarus as the independent states but the Union State to be created based on the 2000 Treaty.

The specialists will be offered a wide range of export models of Russian military products with attractive performance, including that produced by means of the components of Belarus, various upgrade programs for armaments and military equipment of the first generations and different variants of joint work. The exhibited range of armaments and military equipment are in service with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and a number of foreign states where they have been tested under combat conditions. Rosoboronexport proposes foreign customers to organize on a turn-key basis in their countries the recovery and major repair of electrical equipment of tanks, infantry combat vehicles and other combat materiel, including installation of thermal vision sights.

The exhibition will demonstrate a wide range of export military products for Landing Forces, including the BTR-80, BTR-80 А and BTR-90 armored personnel carriers developed by one of the largest companies, ‘GAZ' OJSC of the Russian motor-car industry and produced by the Arzamas machine-building plant that is well known to many foreign customers. High mobility and survivability as well as powerful armament of BTR-90 refer it to the class of wheeled combat infantry vehicles.

The BTR-80 and BTR-80 А armored personnel carriers designed for carrying personnel and supporting them in combat by organic weapons, afloat-water crossing from the move and providing a NBC protection are successfully used by the subunits of Land Forces and Marine.

The participants and the guests of the forum can acquaint with the information and promotional materials on a wide range of Russian tanks (including Т -90S, Т -80U, Т -72S, Т -55 АМ , P Т -76B), infantry combat and airborne assault vehicles of all generations (BMP-1, BMP-2, BMP-3, BMD-2, BMD-3), armored recovery vehicles (BREM-1, BREM- К , BREM-L), multiple rocket systems (MRS) such as ‘Grad', ‘Smerch', ‘Uragan' and its rockets, self-propelled artillery guns and howitzers, anti-tank rocket and antiaircraft gun systems, small arms and close combat weapons. Many models of these armaments employ components of Belarus.

For further cooperation in developing the unified reconnaissance and firing system common both for rocket troops and artillery of the customer country, Rosoboronexport showcases the second generation of the prestrategic battle area real-time surveillance system that has been developed based on the combat employment of the ‘Pchela-1' remotely piloted vehicle (RPV). The target range determined by means of RPV provides engagement of enemy's targets by all weapons, including MRS ‘Smerch', ‘Grad', long-range artillery and naval guns and AF attack helicopters. Its low cost as compared with RPV and high survivability make the system rather attractive in the world' market of arms. The Byelorussian TV and infrared equipment can be used for manufacture of this system.

Since the CIS countries and other states have a great number of self-propelled artillery guns and systems such as 2S1 ‘Gvozdika', 2S3 М ‘Akatsiya', 2S19 ‘Msta-S' and ‘Grad', ‘Uragan' and ‘Smerch' MRS, Rosoboronexport proposes a harmonious system of their technical examination in the countries of foreign customers with subsequent medium or major repair. One of the innovations will be an additional fitting of guns with the automatic fire control and laying systems, and the artillery units with the ‘Mashina-M' fire control systems. These systems will decrease an average time of control over the subunits in 3.0 up to 3.3 times, weapons - in 4 or 5 times, reduce the consumption of ammunition for engagement of standard targets by 10 to 20 % and will increase hit probability on an average by 30 to 40%.

On the whole, development, manufacture, use and delivery of automatic control systems to the third countries as well as the problem of new solutions on integrated automation of all control processes in the armed forces of the customer country will become an independent subject-matter of negotiations of the Russian and Byelorussian specialists.

The ADMS, electronic warfare equipment, ACS and communication facilities will be traditionally demonstrated among other Russian expositions. The ‘Buk M1-2' medium-range missile system will certainly arouse interest among many experts. This is the only system that in the radio and fire countermeasures environments can destroy not only strategic and tactical aircraft, helicopters and cruise missiles but also tactical ballistic and airborne missiles, including anti-radar missiles, warheads of precision weapons and radio-contrast surface and land-based targets.

The experience of combat and peace-making operations in different regions of the world has shown well a special role of transport/assault and attack day-and-night helicopters. That is why visitors of the exhibition are offered the export versions of the day-and-night and all-weather ‘Mi' and ‘Ka' helicopters: Mi-171SH and Mi-17-1V troop-carrying helicopters, Ка -50 and Mi-28NE attack helicopters, Mi-35M transport/combat helicopters, Ka-27 PS shipborne search-and-rescue helicopter and Mi-26 heavy transport helicopter. The foreign customers are also offered various upgrades of most popular Mi-35/24 transport/combat helicopters that have proved successful in more than 30 countries of the world.

Participation of Rosoboronexport and the companies of the Russian defense industry at the ‘MILEX-2005' exhibition will be aimed at further strengthening of cooperation ties in the defense and industrial area, development of military and technical cooperation of Russia with Belarus, CIS and other European countries and will promote further strengthening of Russia and Union State's positions in the world's market of arms.

Rosoboronexport
18.05.2005