The Belarusian Army has for the most part experienced a drought in new acquisitions since its founding in 1992. Much of the scarcely available funding for new acquisitions has been used for the purchase of combat aircraft and air defence systems, most often acquired at friendly prices from Russia. The Ground Forces have been the recipient of 25 T-72B3 Obr. 2016 MBTs and some 65 BTR-82A(M) IFVs from Russia, while China has donated 22 EQ2058s and an unknown number of CS/VN3 infantry mobility vehicles (IMVs) since 2012. China is also the source of the technology behind the Belarusian Polonez guided MRL/SRBM system, which entered service with the Belarusian Army in 2015.

 

In addition to supplying Ukraine with large volumes of armament, Germany has also attempted to entice other countries to send their heavy weaponry to Ukraine in a programme known as 'Ringtausch' (which roughly translates to 'circular exchange'). Under this policy, countries can receive German armament free of charge in exchange for delivering tanks and infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) from own stocks to Ukraine. Although this seemed a promising scheme at first, the 'Ringtausch' programme has largely failed to live up to expectations as most countries expect to have their Soviet-era systems replaced by larger numbers of modern weapon systems than what Berlin is currently able (or willing) to offer.

 

Turkmenistan has accumulated a highly diverse arsenal of arms and equipment acquired from a plethora of countries worldwide. Intriguingly, many of those acquisitions appear to stem from an intention to increase ties with a particular country rather than actually fulfilling a genuine military requirement. This 'friendship through arms' policy comes at the cost of an increasingly complicated logistic system that by now has to source spare parts from nine countries for Turkmenistan's fleet of infantry mobility vehicles (IMVs) alone!