Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 27 February (BelTA) - The people of Belarus made an invaluable contribution to Great Victory, Belarus Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov said at the meeting of the national organizing committee for the celebration of the 70th anniversary of Belarus’ liberation from the Nazi invaders and the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War, BelTA has learned.

"In recent years we have seen the attempts to revise the results of the Second World War. We have seen the denigration of the holy symbols and the historic rehabilitation of the invaders, torturers and murderers, betrayers of their peoples, the diminishment of the role of the Soviet soldiers-liberators in the victory over fascism. We appreciate the role of the allies but one must not forget that the brunt of the most brutal and bloody war in human history was born by the Soviet people. The heroic Belarusian people made an invaluable contribution to Great Victory. Our land became the single line of defense. Here, the Hitler's war machine started to stall, having met the fierce resistance of the Red Army, partisans and underground fighters,” Andrei Kobyakov noted.

According to the Prime Minister, the freedom and independence of the motherland were won at the cost of irreplaceable losses: Belarus lost every third resident. In this connection, Andrei Kobyakov noted that the best form of gratitude to the generations of winners would be the daily care about war veterans. In particular, we need to continue working on establishing the names of people who died on the battlefields, give them military honors. At the same time it is important to make maximum use of the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory for the patriotic education of younger generations, Andrei Kobyakov said.

First of all we need to provide lump-sum financial aid to all veterans and certain categories of citizens affected by the war. We need to complete the program to renovate the apartments and houses of single war veterans and the citizens affected by the war. I also believe it would be useful to consider giving social support to veterans at the expense of local budgets, and commercial and charitable organizations in non-monetary form, said the head of government.

Andrei Kobyakov noted that the authorities keep under special control the medical and rehabilitation program for war veterans. As of 1 January 2015 there were 17,800 veterans of the Second World War in Belarus, of whom 12,000 are participants of the war, including 3,203 disabled war veterans. In addition, there were 27,000 citizens affected by the war in the republic as of 1 January 2015.

The organizing committee discussed, among other things, the preparations for the festive events dedicated to 9 May. The Prime Minister noted that the Belarusian head of state received an invitation from Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the festivities in Moscow, and this fact must also be taken into account by the committee when drafting the program.