Sergei Potapenko

He was born on 14 March 1961 in Rzhavka, a section of the Minsk region of the Byelorussian SSR, which is modern-day Belarus. In 1978, he graduated from the Minsk Suvorov Military School. In 1982, he graduated from the Ulyanovsk Guards Higher Tank Command School. He served as a commander of a tank platoon. He graduated from the Malinovsky Military Armoured Forces Academy in 1992. He worked for the 72nd Guards Joint Training Centre on several staff positions and rose through the ranks from being a senior officer of the training division to the head of the training centre.

In 2008, Potapenko was appointed deputy commander of the North-Western Operational Command. He also commanded the Western Operational Command from 2010 to 2015.

From June 2015, he served as the head of the Main Combat Training Directorate of the Belarusian Armed Forces. On 12 January 2016, Potapenko was appointed Deputy Minister of Defence by order of a presidential decree.^[3][4][5] He was put under sanctions by Lithuania over his role in suppressing the 2020 Belarusian protests.^[6] He was put in the reserves in March 2021.^[7][8][9]