Belarus will have “medium- and longer-range missiles” this year.
Chairman of the State Military-Industrial Committee of Belarus Dmitry Pantus stated this in an interview with the Belarus-1 TV channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“We are working in this area in two vectors. These are medium-range missiles. In February of this year we will continue and, I think, complete the tests. It will be possible to say with confidence that the Republic of Belarus has acquired a medium-range missile with a range of 70 km.
Regarding longer-range missiles, such work is being carried out. In recent years, we have virtually created a team from scratch that is engaged in this development. This is our precision electromechanics plant. We expect a missile breakthrough in 2021. We are about to begin practical testing of this product,” Pantus said.
Note that medium-range missiles include ballistic missiles with a range of 1-5,5 thousand km. Therefore, it is not clear what weapon Pantus had in mind.
In principle, he repeated the words of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, which he said in September 2019. Lukashenko claimed that Belarus had created medium-range missiles based on Chinese designs.
At the same time, the president’s press secretary, Natalya Eismont, explained that Lukashenko did not mean ballistic missiles. We were talking about the “internal Belarusian classification”.