Volozhin Region
Executive Committee

The Belarusian air carrier Belavia will launch charter flights to Tunisia on 20 August, BelTA learned from Belavia's Facebook account.

“Charter flights will be operated to Enfidha (from Minsk, Brest, Gomel and Grodno), Monastir (from Minsk and Vitebsk), and also to Djarba (from Minsk and Mogilev),” the message reads.

Belavia recommends to address travel agencies for details.

The Belavia national air carrier has extended suspension of flights to a number of destinations due to a suspension of international flights in a number of countries due to the coronavirus situation, BelTA learned from the official website of the airline.

Flights to Vienna will be suspended till 15 August, to Riga – till 16 August, to Larnaca – till 31 August, to Ashgabat till 1 September.

Flights to all destinations in Russia will be suspended till 21 August (Voronezh, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod till 24 October), to all destinations in Georgia – till 31 August.

Customers who purchased tickets for these travel dates will be able to apply for a refund or to reschedule the flight till 30 March 2021. Tickets can be refunded and flights can be rescheduled at company's offices and customer service centers. Customers will be able to change the date of travel only once.

The Belarusian national air carrier Belavia will resume scheduled flights to Almaty and Nur Sultan on 17 August, BelTA learned from the airline's Facebook account.

Flights to Almaty will be operated on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Departure time from Minsk is at 20.05, arrival time in Almaty is at 3.55. Flight to Minsk will be performed on Thursdays and Sundays, with departure at 5.10 and arrival at 7.20.

Belavia will fly to Nur Sultan on Thursdays and Sundays at 20.15 with arrival at 3.15. Return flights will be operated on Mondays and Fridays at 4.15, with arrival in Minsk at 5.35 (the time for all airports is local). The company is also planning to increase the frequency of flights.

Belavia recommends checking travel restrictions before taking the flight.

Tickets are available at the website of the airline www.belavia.by.

The number of massive DDoS attacks against the infrastructure of Belarusian telecommunications companies as well as websites of government agencies and organizations was reduced considerably on 12 August, BelTA learned from the republican unitary enterprise National Traffic Exchange Center.

According to the source, emergency recovery work has been finished in the partner networks, which are located in neighboring countries. The republican unitary enterprise National Traffic Exchange Center has managed to fully restore access to Internet resources. Specialists of the enterprise continue working together with other Belarusian telecom carriers to restore equipment and resume access to the Internet. The work will be finished soon. The National Traffic Exchange Center offered apologies for the inconveniences.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against Belarusian Internet resources continue unabated, BelTA learned from the website of the National Computer Emergency Response Team CERT.BY.

A wave of DDoS attacks against Belarusian websites was registered on 9 August. “Attacks continue throughout the day today. Websites of government agencies and organizations are mainly targeted,” CERT.BY said.

Various types of flood attacks designed to saturate bandwidth with data packets and deprive the victim of the ability to use Internet access have been registered since the attacks began. CERT.BY also mentioned attacks meant to deplete server resources (CPU, RAM, and so on).

The total strength of some attacks exceeded 200Gbps. All of them were repulsed by defensive solutions of Belarusian Internet service providers.

A particularly large number of attacks targeted the website of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Belarus. They were carried out at 19:41 and 23:20 on 9 August.

Observers sent by public associations and political parties of Belarus to monitor the presidential election in the country stated that the election was held in strict adherence of the legislation, BelTA has learned.

“9 August was the last day of the presidential election campaign in Belarus. Representatives of our public associations and political parties monitored every polling station throughout the whole voting time. Over 30,000 of our people, and this is the absolute majority of all observers accredited at the election, state that the presidential election was held in line with the legislation of the Republic of Belarus. Our observers monitored all the processes: from opening polling stations to sealing ballot boxes,” the statement of the parties and public associations says.

It was stressed that no major violations which could influence the result of the election were registered. Every citizen had an opportunity to cast their ballots for the candidate he or she supported.

“At the same time certain political forces who nominated their observers falsified the information about the voting process and the whole election campaign in general. They threatened citizens and members of election commissions. Insults and threats were considered a standard by them. Our representatives registered numerous violations of the law on a daily basis. It is clear that all those actions were links of one chain aimed at destabilizing the situation in the country and discrediting the election. They failed to achieve this,” the statement runs.

“We state that this year's political campaign was held in line with the Election Code. The result of the vote confirms the choice of the citizens of our country and is beyond doubt,” the statement reads.

The Belarusian air carrier Belavia has extended suspension of air travel to some destinations, BelTA learned from the website of the airline.

The suspension of flights to Russia has been extended until 14 August (Krasnodar, Sochi – 15 August, Voronezh, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod – 24 October); Vienna, Larnaca, and Kazakhstan – until 15 August; Riga - 16 August; Georgia - 31 August; Ashgabat - 1 September.

Customers who purchased tickets for these travel dates will be able to apply for a refund or to reschedule the flight till 30 March 2021. Tickets can be refunded and flights can be rescheduled at company's offices and customer service centers.

The loading of nuclear fuel into the first unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant will begin on 7 August, BelTA learned from Press Secretary of the Belarusian Energy Ministry Olga Kozlovich.

The official said that the loading of fuel rod arrays into the nuclear reactor core of the first unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant will begin on 7 August as one of the steps in the process of commissioning the unit.

A total of 163 fuel rod arrays will be inserted into the reactor in August.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant is being built near Ostrovets, Grodno Oblast using the Russian design AES-2006 featuring two VVER-1200 reactors with the total output capacity of 2,400MW. The engineering division of the Russian state nuclear industry corporation Rosatom is the general contractor. Generation III+ reactor units boast improved technical and economic parameters. A unique combination of active and passive safeguards is their main peculiarity.

The list of countries that still register new cases of the novel coronavirus has been updated, BelTA learned from the press service of the Belarusian Healthcare Ministry.

As of 4 August, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Tanzania, Fiji and Sri Lanka were removed from the list.

People coming from the countries excluded from the list are not required to self-isolate for 14 days.

Polish Airlines LOT resumed flights to Minsk National Airport on 2 August, BelTA learned from the press service of the airport.

“The LOT flight arrived at Minsk National Airport from Warsaw on 2 August. The Embraer E-170 landed in the Belarusian capital at 13.45, and at 14.35 flew back to Warsaw, to the Chopin airport,” the press service noted.

Polish Airlines LOT is one of the oldest airlines in Europe. It began to carry out regular flights to Minsk in September 1992. The LOT flight program was put on hold due to COVID-19 on 14 March 2020. In August-September, the company plans to perform the Warsaw-Minsk-Warsaw flight four times a week: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday in August, and Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday in September. Changes are possible in the schedule.

“On 17 July Iraqi Airways resumed regular flights on the Baghdad-Minsk-Baghdad route. Two flights per week are scheduled for August. Before the flight, we advise you to get familiar with the entry restrictions in the country of destination, and contact the authorized authorities of the country of arrival,” the press service of the Minsk National Airport said.