About 700,000 sq.m of rental housing for the military to be built in Belarus in coming two years

Belarus’ Deputy Prime Minister, Anatoly Sivak, mentioned certain figures at today’s meeting with the President focusing on the provision of military personnel and persons equated to them with housing. According to him, as of early October, 33,200 servicemen were registered in need of better housing conditions at the place of their service, of which 15,300 have been on the list for more than five years. About 9,800 servicemen apply for rental housing at present.

“The servicemen who do not have their own housing receive compensation from the budget for its rent,” Mr. Sivak said, adding that – following the President’s instruction – the Government joined state agencies of the national security system to additionally work out the issues of providing housing for military personnel and persons equated to them.

“At the same time, the main task of increasing the prestige and duration of military service, and staff recruitment was being solved. Currently, the issue of improving the living conditions of military personnel is settled mainly through construction of residential premises which then are used by right of ownership, including by using state support in the form of privileged loans or subsidies to repay part of the interest for the use of commercial loans, as well as through provision of rental residential premises mainly from communal and partially republican housing stock,” the Deputy Prime Minister explained.

According to Mr. Sivak, 113,000 square metres of housing – or 3,074 apartments – were built for the military by right of ownership. “At present, 6,000 servicemen and persons equated to them live in rental housing. In 2021, about 32,000 square metres of rental housing for military personnel were built,” he said.

The Deputy Prime Minister informed that, based on the Government’s calculations, it is necessary to build about 700,000 square metres of rental housing for the military, and this task is set to be solved in the coming two years.

“We are not talking about the construction of residential towns for the military. These will be apartments in the houses built for other categories of citizens,” Mr. Sivak noted.