Volozhin Region
Executive Committee

Belarusian Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Makei has addressed foreign ministers of the EU member states in view of their numerous statements on Belarus. The text of the address was posted on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, BelTA reports.

“You know me well, you know Belarus and Belarusians. It is not the 18th century now, not 2010 and not even 2015. The Republic of Belarus is a reality. Reality for Europe, reality for the European Union, reality for each of your countries. Therefore, I urge you to live with it and stay in touch with this reality,” Vladimir Makei said.

He admitted that Belarus and various EU nations do not share views on certain things. “However, as soon as our country was put to the first serious test, you started calling for sanctions again right away. This way you have doubled down on those who do not believe in our sovereign ability to build equal and mutually beneficial relations with your states,” the minister noted.

In his words, Belarus already experienced sanctions before and did not cease to exist. “We will pull through, just like before. You know the results of these sanctions. We all will just lose time. We will also momentum our countries and societies need in this fast-changing world,” Vladimir Makei said.

He noted that Belarus is going through a difficult period now. “Which of your countries has not gone through painful stages of national maturation? Let us do it, too. It is better to do it with your help, but without attempts to coerce and use political, financial and other obvious instruments. I want to apologize, but we will view it as nothing else but malevolent actions causing damage to the sovereignty of the Republic of Belarus and we will not be able not to respond to it. However, I still believe in a possibility and good prospects of normal, good neighborly, civilized interstate relations between our countries. This will benefit everyone: Belarus, Europe and entire Eurasia. I ask you to think about it without emotions,” the minister underlined.

As of the morning of August 20, the agrarians of the Minsk region threshed more than 1 million 885 thousand tons of grain, the Committee on Agriculture and Food of the Minsk Oblast Executive Committee reported.

By the way, some farms have already completed the harvest - Kletsk, Kopyl, Nesvizh, Starye Dorogi, Uzda and Stolbts regions.

The largest loaf for today is in Slutsk region - 153.8 thousand tons of grain have been threshed. It is followed by Minsk region - 147 thousand tons, Kopyl region - 145.8 thousand tons are harvested.

The top-list by yield is headed by Nesvizh region. There, grain growers harvested at 67 c/ha, then Kletsky and Minsk - 56 c/ha. The Dzerzhinsky District is also among the leaders, where grain crops yield 55 c/ha. The average yield in the Minsk region is 41 c/ha.

Belarus needs changes but not through civil strife or revolutions, Belarus' Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Makei said in his address to the members of the Belarusian diplomatic service, BelTA has learned.

“Changes are needed, no one denies it. But not at the cost of civil confrontation or revolutions as in this case the number of victims and negative consequences will be many times bigger. We have already been thrown back many years in our development due to the events of the recent days,” said Vladimir Makei.

He stressed that this is not what the Belarusians and the country deserve. “The evolutionary process, even if it is slow, is always more effective in the long term. We deserve better, where everyone is a personality, a countryman, a partner and a whole world for each other, not ‘red' or ‘white',” the minister said.

Vladimir Makei added that Belarus is now going through a painful stage of development of its independence, a civil society. “Please, always analyze the situation. It is difficult to do it with such an information flow, but you can do it,” the minister said addressing the colleagues. “At this crucial moment for our country, it is more important than ever to defend foreign policy interests of Belarus. They remain intact. Put aside your emotions and ask yourself: can I still be of use to the country in my area of work? I know my answer, because I do not want to lose my country. If your answer is yes, then cast aside your doubts and let us continue doing our job responsibly! Perhaps it was this point in history that fate was preparing you for!”

Athletes from Minsk Oblast, gaining 91 points, were ahead of rivals from Minsk (80) and Grodno Oblast (75) in the team competition of the Belarusian youth championship in Greco-Roman wrestling, which ended in the capital, Belta reports.

In the individual championship, four "classics" from the Minsk region at once noted victories: Alexander Negoda (63 kg, Borisov), Alexander Leonchik (67 kg, Minsk region), Andrey Samets (72 kg, Berezino) and Pavel Glinchuk (97 kg, Molodechno)...

The country's youth wrestling championship ended earlier. Tatyana Pavlova from Minsk region became the champion in the weight category of 62 kg.

Based on the results of the past championship, a team will be formed to participate in the Games of the CIS countries in Kazan. This multisport competition for athletes under 23 was supposed to take place in August, but due to the coronavirus pandemic, it was postponed to October.

A unified register of licenses has been launched in Belarus, BelTA learned from the official website of the Belarusian Communications and Informatization Ministry.

The unified register of licenses is an information system that contains data about issued licenses, updates and amendments to them, news about suspension, renewal, expiry, and revocation of licenses as well as other data that should be provided under the legislation. The register already contains over 50,600 licenses.

The register was created in line with Decree No.326 of 2 September 2019 on improving licensing. It is meant to do away with excessive regulations, improve the licensing procedures, and ease the terms and conditions for license applicants and holders. The establishment and operation of the unified register of licenses was approved by the Council of Ministers' resolution.

The register is available at license.gov.by and the central electronic services portal. The unified register of licenses provides information for free.

Any changes should be carried out within the legal framework, otherwise the country will face serious consequences, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko said at a meeting of the Security Council with the participation of regional leaders by a video link, BelTA learned.

“Once again, I would like to reiterate: changes that some want should be within the law. Changes must be spelled out in the Constitution. This work continues. It will be stepped up. How fast the work on the Constitution goes will depend on people's support. With the Constitution in place, we will be able to have discussions about the re-election of the bodies of authorities,” the Belarusian leader said.

Aleksandr Lukashenko emphasized that there is the legal and regulatory framework in the country, the current Constitution. “We should faithfully adhere to it. I have no other means to keep the country within the legal framework, in compliance with this Constitution. Otherwise, we will be governed by others,” the president said.

In January-July 2020, agricultural farms of all kinds (state-run agricultural enterprises, private farmers, subsidiary farms) produced Br9.9 billion worth of goods, which was 2.8% up year-on-year in comparable prices, BelTA learned from the National Statistics Committee.

In January-July 2020, agricultural enterprises made Br9.5 billion worth of products, which was up by 3.3% over the same period of 2019 in comparable prices.

The output of cattle and poultry (in terms of live weight) at farms of all kinds totaled 1,086,000 tonnes (up 4.9%), including 1,047,000 (up 5.4%) in state-run agricultural enterprises. Milk production reached 4,562,000 tonnes (up 5.5%), including 4,417,000 million tonnes (up 6.1%) in state-run agricultural enterprises.

As of 1 August 2020, the number of cattle in agricultural enterprises stood at 4.2 million head (99.5% as against the same period of 2019), including 1.4 million cows (up 0.2%). The number of pigs amounted to 2.6 million head, up 2.3% from 1 August 2019.

Nearly 1,000 forest fires have happened in Belarus since the beginning of the year, BelTA learned from Aleksei Boiko, a consultant with the Forest Management Office of the Belarusian Forestry Ministry.

As of 17 August there had been 986 forest fires with their total area as large as 6.575 million hectares. Most of the fires happened in Brest Oblast (347 fires on an area of 2.3 million hectares) and Gomel Oblast (263 fires on an area of 3.5 million hectares).

This year's situation with forest fires in Belarus has been determined by unusual weather in spring. Sunny weather, gusty winds, the willingness of Belarusians to set old dry grass on fire as a spring cleanup measure, failures to observe fire safety requirements resulted in forestry enterprises having to deal with forest fires as early as mid-March. The first fire in a forest run by the Forestry Ministry was registered on 15 March. It is worth noting that spring fires, fires in April to be exact, accounted for 90% of the entire area of forest fires.

The situation has been stabilized since then. To prevent forest fires, preserve Belarusian forests, and take care of people's safety when they visit forests, municipal authorities promptly introduce restrictions and prohibitions on visiting forests after receiving fire hazard warnings from the national weather service.

This year Forestry Ministry enterprises have built a total of 74,000km of dozer lines, 49.5km of new firebreaks, and have repaired over 1,500km of fire trails. Over 4,000 inspections have been arranged, with 565 people now facing administrative charges.

Over 660 lookout towers are used to detect forest fires early. Of them 623 towers are equipped with video surveillance systems. The introduction of an automated remote system for detecting forest fires early continues.

Belarus' Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Makei had a phone conversation with Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Ann Linde on 18 August, BelTA learned from the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“The parties exchanged views on the development of the post-election situation in and around Belarus and discussed the prospects for Belarus' cooperation with the European Union and the OSCE,” the press service said.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs added that Vladimir Makei is scheduled to have a number of telephone calls with his counterparts. For example, in a phone call with Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto the parties exchanged views on the current situation after the presidential election in Belarus and discussed the prospects for further cooperation.

Belarus still has to harvest 12.1% of land under grain and leguminous crops (except for maize, buckwheat and millet), BelTA learned from the Agriculture and Food Ministry.

As of 18 August, grain and leguminous crops were harvested on the area of 1.93 million hectares, or 87.9% of the plan. Brest Oblast has taken the lead fulfilling 98.5% of the harvesting plan (332,400 hectares). Grodno Oblast cropped 97.1% (309,400 hectares), Gomel Oblast harvested 95% of the area (323,200 hectares), Minsk Oblast harvested 94.1% (456,500 hectares), Mogilev Oblast gathered 75.9% (255,500 hectares), Vitebsk Oblast harvested 67.2% (253,800 hectares).

All in all, 7.236 million tonnes of grain was threshed across the country with the average yield at 37.5 centners per hectare (in 2019, the yield as of the same date was 31.7 centners per hectare). Minsk Oblast harvested more than 1.8 million tonnes of grain, Grodno Oblast more than 1.4 million tonnes and Brest Oblast over 1.3 million tonnes.

Flax was harvested on the area of 43,100 hectares (88.6% of the area under this crop).

Some 752,100 tonnes of hay (74.5% of the plan), 12.618 million tonnes of haylage (100.1%) and 642,200 tonnes of silage (3.35%) were stocked. In total, there are plans to procure 9.3 million tonnes of fodder units of grass feed, most of them in Minsk Oblast and Brest Oblast. By this time, 43.5% of the plan has been fulfilled.