OREANDA-NEWS. February 22, 2011. The state will be working to further enhance the prestige of military service in Belarus, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said as he met with the Armed Forces personnel.

According to Alexander Lukashenko, there is a need to improve social security of military personnel. “In general, the salaries of officers are now above the average in the country, which corresponds to global trends. But this is more true for senior officers. Younger officers are not that well provided for, hence an outflow of personnel from the army,” the head of state said.

The president stressed that “we need the Armed Forces to come up with a clear and well thought-out strategy as to how, in the current difficult financial conditions, to prevent the outflow of professional personnel, to preserve and nurture the future generations of our Army.” Alexander Lukashenko is sure that the officer corps has always been and will be the foundation of the Armed Forces.

“I know that officers and warrant officers are not always provided with housing on time and in necessary volumes. In recent years this problem has aggravated, in part because of the passive position of the Defense Ministry and the government. But no one should doubt that the government will take measures to further enhance the prestige of military service. Service men will be provided with decent allowances, which will be equivalent to well-paying jobs in this country,” the President said.

According to the president, other important tasks include maintaining and boosting patriotism, efficient ideological work, prevention of alien influence on the armed forces that causes damage to the national security. “These provisions are enshrined in the national security concept as priority ones. Therefore, officers should be directly involved in instilling responsibility for the defense of the Fatherland in our citizens. It is particularly true for young Belarusians,” he said. According to Alexander Lukashenko, a great part of the Belarusian youth serves in the army and in the reserve: “What they will see and learn there and tell their families about, will shape the public opinion of our Armed Forces and the state in general.”

The president noted that while visiting the 2nd Engineer Brigade of the Armed Forces, he saw the military unit the way any military unit should be. “I know and remember full well how and in what conditions soldiers lived before. It cannot even be compared. I served in the best military units as a soldier and an officer,” the president said. The head of state emphasized that such living and training conditions should be in all the military units of the Armed Forces in the future. “You have three years to do that. You need to employ all resources possible, not only the centralized ones (the state, government bodies, the Defense Ministry). Civilians, including companies, organizations and common people, have always provided great support for the army. The private sector is ready to join,” he said.