(For in-depth information about this country, visit the Belarus section of the NIS Nuclear and Missile Database.)
Belarus has no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in its possession. As a signatory to a number of arms reduction treaties, Belarus transferred all of its Soviet-era nuclear warheads to Russia in the 1990s. It does not possess biological or chemical warfare programs. Though Belarus inherited no major production or design facilities from the Soviet Union, a number of firms continue cooperation with Russian missile/space enterprises.
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Missile
When Belarus gained independence in December 1991, there were 81 road-mobile SS-25s on its territory stationed at three missile bases, and an unknown number of tactical nuclear weapons. During the 1980s, a number of units equipped with intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) were also stationed in the Belarusian SSR; however, all of these weapons were eliminated under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty by 1991. In May 1992, Belarus signed the Lisbon Protocol, which obligated it to accede to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear weapon state, which it did in July 1993, and to ratify the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which it ratified in February 1993. As a result of these commitments, Belarus transferred its nuclear weapons to Russia. The process of transferring tactical warheads was completed in May 1992, and the last strategic warheads and associated missiles were sent to Russia in November 1996. No nuclear forces have been stationed in Belarus since then, although the possibility of stationing Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus was broached by a number of Belarusian officials in the late 1990s. Additionally, a report in 2005 stated that President Alexander Lukashenko had refused to sign an additional protocol to the NPT and was also considering the introduction of a nuclear power plant in Belarus, still unpopular in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine. President Lukashenko also reaffirmed in January 2005 that Belarus does not intend to ever engage in banned nuclear developments, in spite of allegations from his political opponents.
Browse the Belarus Section of the NIS Nuclear and Missile Database
According to the U.S. Department of Defense, Belarus does not have a biological warfare (BW) program, and there is no indication that it has plans to establish such a program in the future. Although Belarus was a Soviet republic in 1972, it is a signatory of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC), which it ratified in 1975.
Biological Overview
In January 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin declared that all former Soviet chemical weapons had been transferred to Russia. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, Belarus does not have a chemical warfare (CW) program, nor does it have any plans to establish such a program in the future. Belarus is a State Party of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which it ratified in 1996.
Belarus inherited no major production or design facilities from the Soviet Union. However, a number of Belarusian firms continue cooperation with Russian missile/space enterprises, including the Minsk Wheeled Prime Mover Plant (MZKT), which produced transporter-erector launcher (TEL) vehicles for SS-25 and SS-27 road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). In recent events, Presidents Putin and Lukashenko agreed on the deployment of Russian S-300 missiles in western Belarus in April 2005. [1] However, Belarus voluntarily destroyed 14 Strela-2M portable missile systems under OSCE observation in May 2005, fearing their theft and subsequent use by terrorist organizations. [2]
Browse the Belarus Section of the NIS Nuclear and Missile Database
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