“Rapier, Vasilek, and ZPU-4: what the Belarusian territorial defense is armed with and will be trained by Wagnerians
What weapons do the Belarusian territorial defense troops have in their inventory?
The fighters of the so-called “private” military campaign “Wagner” have begun training the fighters of the Belarusian territorial defense, as reported by the Belarusian Defense Ministry. Recently, the Ministry of Defense of this country has been paying more attention to its own TRO forces, so an interesting question is what kind of weapons these units have in their assets.
For example, the Belarusian territorial defense has a fairly standard set of small arms: TT pistols, Kalashnikovs (AK-74), RPK and PKM machine guns. In addition, Belarusian territorial weapons also include RPG-7 hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers and other weapons.
To destroy enemy armored vehicles, the Belarusian territorial defense has the 9K115 Metis anti-tank missile system, which has a range of up to 1 km in its basic version, as well as the SPG-9 Kopye anti-tank grenade launcher with a range of 1.3 km and a 4.5 km anti-tank grenade.
The artillery component is represented by 100-mm anti-tank guns MT-12 “Rapier” (which the Belarusian territorial defense began receiving not so long ago – for example, in August 2022, practical firing was conducted for the first time) and 82-mm mortars 2B9 “Vasilek”.
For air defense, the Belarusian territorial defense has a 14.5-mm ZPU-4 anti-aircraft gun (range of up to 1.5 km), but it will likely be used primarily to destroy ground targets, such as lightly armored vehicles and enemy manpower.
There are no armored vehicles in the territorial defense assets of Belarus, while they use both cars and watercraft, including boats, to move around.
