Viktor Khrenin

Viktor Gennadievich Khrenin (Russian: Виктор Геннадиевич Хренин) is a senior leader in the Belarusian Armed Forces and the current Minister of Defense.

He was born on 1 August 1971 in Novogrudok, a village in the Grodno Region. He graduated in 1988 from the Minsk Suvorov Military School. After graduating from the Omsk-based Frunze Higher Combined Arms Command School in 1992, he served as a platoon commander and later a battalion commander in the 6th Separate Guards Mechanised Brigade. After graduating from the Military Academy of Belarus in 2005, Khrenin served as a senior officer in the operational department of the headquarters of the Western Operational Command. After leaving this post, he took a number of leadership positions that climaxed when he became the commander of the 11th Separate Guards Mechanised Brigade. In 2014, he graduated from the faculty of the General Staff of the Belarusian Military Academy with honours and a gold medal. On 23 June 2015, by decree of President Alexander Lukashenko he was appointed to the post of commander of the troops of the Western Operational Command. After 5 years in this role, he was appointed in January 2020, by President Lukashenko, to the post of the Defence Minister of Belarus, succeeding Lieutenant General Andrei Ravkov, who himself was made the State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus. Upon his appointment, he underlined his consistency with military priorities while admitting that he "will have to study and learn a lot".