MINSK. April 5 (Interfax) - The suspension of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty by Belarus will not prompt any "multifold increase" of the country's army and weapons in its inventories, Valery Revenko, aide to the Belarusian defense minister for international military cooperation, said.
"The essence of this treaty is that it stipulates certain quotas for the number of military personnel, weapons and military equipment for each country and measures to monitor compliance with these limits by states. For the Republic of Belarus, this means non-exceedance of a threshold of 100,000 personnel. Also, the number of tanks must not exceed 1,800, that of combat armored vehicles must not be over 2,600, and there must be no more than 1,615 artillery pieces, 294 warplanes and 80 combat helicopters," Revenko said.
"Regarding the quotas and limits, we have long been keeping the number of personnel in the Armed Forces at 65,000. And as for weapons and military equipment, there is no multifold increase or any changes projected for the nearest future," he said.
"As for inspection activities, regrettably today we have a situation where Western nations are showing disregard concerning the implementation of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty. Besides, we cannot be inspecting foreign states since they have created a situation where they do not receive our inspections," he said.
As reported previously, a draft bill suspending the CFE Treaty was to be submitted to the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus, as Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko greenlighted this.
Belarus ratified the treaty in 1992, and it took effect that year.
The Czech Republic decided not to adhere to the treaty in regard to Belarus in August 2022, and Poland followed suit in March 2023. Six months later, in November 2023, the NATO North-Atlantic Council made a statement about the desire of NATO member states that are signatories to the treaty to suspend it. Russia also pulled out from the CFE Treaty.