Summary

Non-signatory Belarus acknowledges the convention’s humanitarian rationale but has not taken any steps to accede. It has never participated in a meeting of the convention and has abstained from voting on an annual United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention.

Belarus has not produced cluster munitions, nor is it known to have used or exported them. It inherited a stockpile from the Soviet Union but has not provided information on the types or quantities possessed.

Policy

The Republic of Belarus has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Belarus rarely comments on its position on joining the convention.[1] After the convention was adopted in 2008, Belarus said it “shares the humanitarian concerns” caused by cluster munitions but objected to the way that the convention was negotiated outside UN auspices.[2]

Belarus did not participate in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It has never participated in a meeting of the convention.[3]

Belarus has abstained from voting on the annual UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution supporting implementation and universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, most recently in December 2020.[4] It has never explained why it abstains when other non-signatories vote for the non-legally binding resolution.

Belarus is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty and completed the destruction of its stockpiled antipersonnel landmines in 2017.

Belarus is a party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and in the past expressed a preference for cluster munitions to be addressed through this framework convention.

Use, production, and transfer

In 2010, Belarus said, “Our country is not a producer of cluster munitions.”[5] Belarus is not known to have used cluster munitions.

Since 2014–2016 Belarus has developed and produced the Polenz multi-barrel rocket launcher to replace older systems. This launcher is based on the A200 launcher system of Chinese design and reportedly uses a variety of 300mm rockets, including an “fragmentation armour piercing cluster.”[6] According to the database of arms transfers maintained by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Belarus exported six Polonez launchers to Azerbaijan in 2018. These weapons were used in the 2020 conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh but it is not known whether cluster munitions rockets were fired by these launchers.

Stockpiling

Belarus inherited a stockpile of cluster munitions from the Soviet Union, but it has never provided public information on the types and quantities that it possesses.[7]

According to Jane’s Information Group, the country’s air force has RBK-500 series cluster bombs.[8] Belarus also possessed Grad 122mm, Uragan 220mm, and Smerch 300mm surface-to-surface rockets, but it is not known if these include versions with cluster munition payload.[9] This uncertainty extends further as Belarus has exported its older Grad (Angola and Turkmenistan) and Uragan (Angola) multi-barrel rocket launchers since 2010.[10]