- State affiliation · Belarus
- Vigil category device · not official insignia
Identity provenance
State affiliation: Belarus.
Vigil category device — drawn from this record’s own domain, echelon and role. Not an official insignia.
In brief
The special operations forces — a command created on 1 August 2007 from the Mobile Forces, whose lineage the ministry traces to the Soviet 103rd Airborne Division, 38th Air Assault Brigade and 5th Spetsnaz Brigade stationed in Belarus; the ministry names two brigades in its structure, and it is the only branch for which 2026 unit formation is documented in the monitoring read.
- Scope
- Structure, role, lineage and links. No subordinate records published.
- Subordination
- Subordination reported
- Sources
- 2 on the record
- Record state
- Partial
- Broad area of activity
- Belarus; the ministry defines the forces by task rather than territory, as formations "intended for solving special tasks in the interests of achieving political, military, economic and psychological objectives".
- Notable history
- The ministry's lineage is the Soviet airborne and special-purpose formations that were in Belarus in 1991 — the 103rd Airborne Division, the 38th Air Assault Brigade and the 5th Separate Special Purpose Brigade — reorganised into separate mobile brigades, gathered as the Mobile Forces, and on 1 August 2007 placed under a Special Operations Forces Command created on the Mobile Forces' basis. The ministry's structure page names the 38th and 103rd brigades today. The monitoring read documents, uniquely among the branches, new unit formation in 2026: two airborne-assault battalions raised and attached to the existing brigades, which the monitor assesses as the nucleus of a third brigade forming toward 2027 — an estimate, not an announcement.
- Strengths
- Published lineage and structure to brigade level, the only branch with documented growth in 2026, and the formations most likely to be the Belarusian contribution to any joint operation.
- Limitations
- Two brigades is the published scale, growth is assessed rather than announced, and nothing about strength, readiness or location is authored. Assessed-grade throughout.
Lineage & institutional history
Predecessors: Mobile Forces of the Armed Forces of Belarus
The ministry states that the three formations it inherited in Belarus — the 103rd Airborne Division, the 38th Air Assault Brigade and the 5th Separate Special Purpose Brigade — were reorganised into separate mobile brigades, then developed into the Mobile Forces, and that on 1 August 2007 the Special Operations Forces Command was created on that command's basis.
Assessed as of — 2026 Last reviewed — 2026-09-28
See this force in the structure Interactive: select this record and follow what connects to it.