MINSK, November 30 (AVN) - Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko has appointed Lieutenant-General Leonid Maltsev deputy secretary of his National Security Council, the Military News Agency learned on Thursday.
Maltsev was urgently recalled from Moscow, where he worked as first deputy chief of the CIS military co-operation co-ordination headquarters.
Maltsev told the Agency he had spoken to Lukashenko and had been assigned the mission to supervise army development and military reform. He quoted Lukashenko as saying the general should borrow the best from the experience of CIS armies to complete the Belarussian Armed Forces restructuring and submit his proposals on the matter to the president.
The restructuring is a very important task that demands a thoroughly balanced approach, Lukashenko said, according to Maltsev. Security of the country and the Union of Russia and Belarus should not be affected, nor should servicemen or their families.
"That is the essence of the instruction given to me by the president," the general noted.
Maltsev served as chief-of-staff of the Belarussian Armed Forces from 1994 to 1995. In May 1995, he was appointed defence minister, but resigned in November 1996 and worked in the CIS military co-operation co-ordination headquarters after that.