Oleg Belokonev

Belokonev (right) with the Chief of the General Staff of Russia, Army General Valery Gerasimov.

He was born on May 15, 1965 in a rural village in the Primorsky Krai region of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic. He first began his service in the Armed Forces of the USSR in the early 1980s. He graduated with honors in 1987 from the Omsk Higher All-Arms Command School and was immediately sent to serve in the armed forces thereafter. Belokonev then began to rise to the position of platoon commander and eventually commander of a motorized rifle battalion. He graduated with a gold medal from the Military Academy of Belarus in 1999 before going back into active duty service. In the early 2000s, Belokonev primarily served in the area of operations of the Grodno Military Commandant of the Western Operational Command.[1][2][3]

In August 2010, he was appointed commander of Belarusian Special Forces. Just 5 months later, on the eve of Armed Forces Day, Colonel Belokonev was promoted to the rank of Major General.[4] On January 11, 2014, he was appointed by President Alexander Lukashenko, to the position of Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, also concurrently serving as First Deputy Minister of Defence of Belarus.[5] He is a recipient of the Order "For Service to the Homeland in the Armed Forces of Belarus" having been awarded the order in 2014. He was dismissed in December 2019.[6]