An industrial base will be created in Vietnam for supplying Belarusian military equipment to South-East Asia.
This is how a military observer of the Belarusians and Market newspaper Aliaksandr Alesin commented on Laos president’s visit to Belarus for the charter97.org web-site.
"Vietnam, and Kampuchea, and Laos once ended up being involved in a war in the Indo-Chinese peninsula. Laos’ army was supported by the Vietnamese, the Soviet Union and the Chinese. It was armed with old samples of Soviet weapons or weapon, created by Soviet licenses in China. Considering the situation, when this region gets more and more unstable because of the natural resources, Laos, despite its being not the richest country out there, is interested in putting in order the Soviet weapons it has in its disposal. This is first of all armored tank equipment, air defense equipment. They may be interested in unmanned aviation machinery, equipment for radio-electronic intelligence and radiolocation. This is what may be in demand the most", - the expert noted.
The military observer highlighted that Belarus does not produce either tanks or planes, but does produce radiolocation equipment, communication equipment and equipment for radio-electronic warfare of fairly high quality.
"It also carries out programs on the modernization of Soviet equipment, including the oldest samples like tanks T-54, T-55, installing the newest aiming devices. Probably, Laos’ leadership will be interested in backsights for small arms. And or course radio locators, including not only for air target detection, but also land object for covering land and sea borders. Probably they may be interested in cross-country vehicles for towing artillery systems, for the installation of multiple rocket launcher systems, radio locators and other kinds of weapons. The thing is that the ZILs and Urals from the Soviet times that they have in their inventory have almost exhausted their potential in the conditions of the tropical climate. And now it is quite possible that Minsk Tractor Wheel Plant or MAW, or both enterprises may get a certain number of orders", - the expert claimed.
He finds conceivable the creation of a strong point in Indo-China for supplying Belarusian weapons not only for Laos, but other countries in the region too.
"Considering that there recently were negotiations and projects with Vietnam, I think everything will go roughly in the same vein. It is even possible that there will be an industrial base in Vietnam in order to serve the whole region at once. That would allow to escape the need to carry everything so far, but create some site in Vietnam, and then supply Laos too with some kinds of high quality armory", - Aliaksandr Alesin summed up.
We would remind that the president of Laos Choummaly Sayasone familiarized today with the samples of the armory in the inventory of the Armed Forces of Belarus.