How local defense budgets in Brest region have been changing in 2023-2024

In 2023, the expenditures of local budgets of Brest region on national defense decreased five times.

Previously, we have already drawn attention to the fact that expenditures on the items “National Defense. Ensuring mobilization and preparation to it” in the local budgets of a number of regions of Belarus for 2024 continued to grow. In this article, we analyzed information on all budgets of Brest region for 2024 and compared it with expenditures in 2023.

What are the expenditures included in the item “National Defense. Ensuring mobilization and preparation to it” spent on?

According to Art. 18 of the Law “On mobilization and preparation to it”, works on mobilization preparation, carried out in order to increase the sustainability of the functioning of local executive and administrative bodies and organizations subordinate to them, are subject to financing from local budgets.

Note.

• Mobilization preparation is a system of measures taken in peacetime to prepare the economy, state bodies, the Belarusian Armed Forces (and other military formations) to protect the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and constitutional order of Belarus and to meet the needs of the state and the population in wartime;
• Mobilization is a set of measures to transfer the economy of Belarus and state bodies to work under wartime conditions, as well as a set of measures of military mobilization.

According to the Decision of the Council of Ministers of June 1, 2019, No.347 “On financial provision of the territorial defense”, local budgets may finance:

• Expenditures related to the functioning of territorial defense management bodies (including equipment of premises for work with state secrets, production of propaganda and information materials on territorial defense issues, purchase of military uniforms and insignia, personal armour protection equipment, etc.).
• Expenditures related to the preparation for the fulfillment of assigned tasks by territorial defense management bodies and military units of territorial troops (including payment for public utilities, medical and household services, equipment of accommodation for territorial troops, payment for transportation services and fuel and lubricants, etc.). During military training sessions, military uniforms and gear, furniture, household goods are purchased, and food is provided for reservists at the expense of local budgets.
• Expenditures on repair and construction of territorial defense control centers, equipping them with life support facilities, etc.
• Expenditures on creation and improvement of the training material base for combat coordination of territorial defense.
• Expenditures on procurement, storage and renewal of stocks of materiel for territorial defense.

Local budgets also finance:

• Work of military commissariats (ensuring the functioning of recruiting (assembly) centers, providing equipment and property, as well as forms and books necessary for military commissariats to conduct military mobilization and recruitment work);
• Expenses for supplying national home guard units (including with radio and telephone communications, furniture, inventory, office equipment, vehicles, special literature, etc.).

What expenditures are included in the budgets of Brest region?

In total, we studied 20 budgets of Brest region – one regional, three city and sixteen district budgets. The total amount of expenditures on national defense in all twenty budgets was about $4.89 million. This is 4.7 times more than in 2023.

Before moving on to the analysis of the 2024 budgets, we would like to pay more attention to the 2023 budgets. During the year, the defense expenditures of the budgets were adjusted. While at the beginning of 2023 the expenditures of all budgets of Brest region amounted to about $5.5 million, during the year they were reduced five times – to about $1.07 million.

Some reductions were very significant:

• Brest region — from 1,636,407 BYN to 687,307 BYN (2.3-fold)
• Brest city — from 4,415,600 BYN to 731,020,69 BYN (6-fold)
• Pinsk — from 4,367,700 BYN to 640,128,27 BYN (6.8-fold)
• Kobryn district — from 4,364,600 BYN to 658,206,18 BYN (6.6-fold)

The reason for the budget cuts is unknown. Perhaps officials overestimated the financial capabilities of their regions, and the planned defense expenditures had to be redirected to more urgent problems.

Of the 20 budgets studied for 2024, national defense expenditures:

• increased in 16 budgets;
• decreased in 4 budgets;
• no expenditures were included in 3 budgets.

The average amount of national defense budget expenditures of the city and district budgets of the region amounted to 786,500 BYN/$241,154.

The most notable increase in expenditures occurred in the following budgets:

• Brest city — 4.8-fold.
• Baranavichy — 20.8-fold.
• Pinsk — 5.6-fold.
• Kobryn district — 5.4-fold.

In turn, the budget expenditures of Luninets district decreased by 2.5-fold. This may be due to the fact that last year drills with the territorial defense were conducted in the district. Such drills are held once every few years.

As noted above, local budgets finance, among other things, territorial defense drills. In 2022-2023, territorial defense drills were conducted in Kobryn and Luninets districts. Given the planned expenditures on national defense for 2024, we may assume that territorial defense drills will be held in Drahichyn, Kamianiets, Kobryn, and Pruzhany districts.

At the same time, no territorial defense drills were conducted in 2023 in the regions where very large defense expenditures were budgeted (Baranavichy, Pinsk, Brest, and Kobryn district). Therefore, we can expect that no territorial defense drills will be conducted there in 2024 either.

Expenditures of local budgets of Brest region on national defense in 2022-2024

Exchange rate BYN to $ as of 11.04.2024

Key conclusions

• In 2023, the expenditures of local budgets of Brest region on national defense were adjusted, and during the year decreased five times.
• Unlike Homiel region, where the regional budget accounts for 95.2% of the region’s expenditures on national defense, in Brest region 90% of expenditures fall on the budgets of Brest, Baranavichy, Pinsk and Kobryn district.
• The planned expenditures will make it possible not only to finance the current activities of local authorities in the sphere of national defense, but also to continue investing in them (provided that the planned expenditures are not reduced). For example, in the construction of fortified areas of the so-called “Khrenin’s line”, the purchase of gear and equipment, the creation of material reserves, etc.
• It is possible that planned expenditures will be significantly reduced during the year (as was the case in 2023).