Is Belarus to sell Russian missiles to Chaves? :: Charter'97 :: News

Belarus announced its intention to deliver weapons totaling USD 1 billion to Venezuela. The experts doubt Belarus’ abilities of satisfying such demand independently, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes.

It became known of the Minsk and Karakas to sign the contract on military cooperation valued USD 1 billion from the state secretary of the security council of Belarus Viktar Sheiman. The Belarusian delegation had been working in Karakas for several days and their work resulted in concluding multibillion contracts.

According to the military experts, such large –scale project arouses doubt». I can’t actually imagine what can be sold to such amount”, the Belarusian political scientist Andrei Fiodorov told the Nezavisimaya Gazeta. He recalled that once after selling a batch of the MIGs to Peru Belarus got only USD 300 billion. According to Fiodorov, the weapons transfer through Belarus, primarily the Russian ones, may be meant in this connection.

However, as the Nezavisimaya Gazeta managed to find out, the mobile antimissile complex C-300P may be foreseen for the “Venezuelan deal”. At the Minsk heavy artillery movers’ works the multi-shaft carriages are manufactured. Only C-300 might be meant by Hugo Chaves when dwelling on the intention of acquiring “the stunning antimissile system with 200 km range missiles”. The cost of such system depending on the spare parts attached amounts to USD 0.8-1.2 billion.

According to the director of the Russian center of strategy analysis and technologies Ruslan Pukhov Belarus is not a final manufacturer of the majority of defense weapons that is why the output manufactured in cooperation with Russia is to be meant in this respect. “But formally it will be registered as the purely Belarusian output”, Pukhov explained to the Nezavisimaya Gazeta.