How to Become a General

This autumn Belarus will start training supreme officers for the Belarusian Armed Forces on its own at the General Staff faculty of the Military Academy in Minsk. But it does not mean the Russian military academies will stop training future army commanders for the ally. Let us remind you, a Belarusian military can become a general only after graduating from the General Staff Academy of the Russian Armed Forces. At present Belarusian colleagues will continue their study at the armoured troops, airborne troops, combat engineers and other military academies of Russia as well as other institutions of the Defence Ministry. The piece of news was commented on by Belarusian Minister of Defence Colonel-General Leonid Maltsev. He said, “Early this year we will complete measures taken to establish the General Staff Faculty at the Military Academy and as from September 1 we will independently begin training top qualification personnel for the national army. The faculty will also train supreme administrators for state security and defence bodies”.

Nowadays over 20 doctors of science, 230 candidates of science, including around 30 professors and 140 associate professors, work for the Belarusian Armed Forces. The army also has an Armed Forces Research Institute. In 2005 the military education system underwent several major changes. In particular, the Military Academy launched a new scheme for training tactical level officers. As part of the scheme future officers are educated according to junior army specialist programmes at education centres and units of the Armed Forces. Besides, the education scheme for junior officers and military specialists has been redesigned. It is true, however, that the well-tuned education system used to train top officers with the help of the Russian Defence Ministry will not be broken.