Social spending in Belarus is higher than elsewhere. Minsk is not to blame for the migration crisis on the Belarusian-Polish border. The state-managed Belarusian Union of Journalists has become an example of professional ethics

We decided to do a little compilation that shows how the editors of “Yellow Plums” and employees of state TV channels actually follow this rule.

"You are a creature, a stinking manure, I wish you and your entire European Commission to experience the Lithuanian humanism: to be raped, beaten on the head, chest and back until you pass out, and then stuffed into a sleeping bag and thrown on the Belarusian border," said Grigory Azarenok in his author’s program "Secret springs of politics".

Oleg Gaidukevich, a member of the House of Representatives and the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, said on TV channel "Belarus-1" that Belarus is not to blame for the situation on the border with migrants.

"No international organization has made a conclusion that it is Belarus’ fault, on the contrary, they say that Poland is to blame, while they are discussing the introduction of another package of sanctions against Belarus," said Gaidukevich on "Belarus-1”.

In October, researchers from the international organization “Human Rights Watch” visited both sides of the Belarusian-Polish border, talked to migrants, and released a special report. Here is a quote from it:

"Polish authorities push back those who try to cross the border and who managed to cross first. Belarusian officials beat and detain those who return and force them to try to cross to Poland again, at the same time preventing them in most cases from leaving for other places in Belarus or returning to their own countries. Belarus and Poland share responsibility for this human crisis".

According to a resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the migration tension on the border of Belarus with the member states of the Council of Europe (CoE) and the European Union was created artificially. The Parliamentary Assembly calls such actions of official Minsk a "hybrid attack" and "condemns any use of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers for political purposes”.

The United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union countries in the United Nations Security Council believe that the migration crisis on the border with Poland was created by Belarus, and condemn the country for that. This is stated in a joint statement of these countries following closed sessions in the United Nations Security Council.

Maria Petrashko, the host of the TV channel "Belarus-1", visited the OSCE summit and talked to Olga Karach. During their conversation, it became clear that Maria is convinced that Belarus is the only country in the world that spends 40% of the state budget on the social sphere.

Here is her argument in a conversation with Olga Karach:

"40% of Belarus' budget goes to social spending. What do you mean, it doesn't matter? Name me another country that does that”.

We can tell Maria Petrashko even about three such countries. This is despite the fact that we have only glanced at the budgets of these randomly selected countries, which means there could be many more.

Here is the structure of Belarusian budget expenditures for 2021. Almost 45% of the consolidated budget goes to education, health care, social policy, culture, and sports. Here Maria was not mistaken.

Let's see Germany's budget for 2021. The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs receives more than 30% of spending, the Ministry of Health – more than 9%, the Ministry of Family Affairs – more than 2%, and the Ministry of Education and Research – almost 4%. In total, more than 45% of Germany's budget goes to the social sphere. In total, more than 45% of Germany's budget goes to the social sphere. In other words, this country allocates for social policy a proportionally larger part of its budget than Belarus does, and incommensurably more in absolute numbers.

Now let's move on to the Russian budget. RBC, citing the Ministry of Finance, reported that in 2021, 40% of the budget will be spent on the social sphere, which is the same figure that Maria Petrashko was talking about.

In addition, even in Ukraine this figure is higher than 40%. Environmental protection - 0.41%, health care - almost 12%, spiritual and physical development - 1%, education - about 5%, social protection and social welfare - almost 25%. In total, more than 42% of Ukraine's budget goes on social spending.

In an interview with Dmitry Kiselev, Alyaksandar Lukashenka claimed that he did not know that Belarusian planes did not fly to Crimea.

“Don’t we fly to Crimea? Frankly speaking, I didn't even know we don't fly to Crimea," Lukashenka replied to Kiselev's question about when Belavia would fly to Crimea.

Either Alyaksandar Lukashenka has a poor memory, or he is simply lying. We found another of his statements on this subject, which shows that he is well aware of it. This video was published on “BELTA” on June 1 of this year.

"Ukraine has closed the sky for us. We have our own sanatorium in the Crimea, in Mishor, which people always visited . In order not to escalate the situation, we went there through Ukraine, some by train, some by car and some by plane. Now they have closed the air space. I asked Putin how otherwise, in his opinion, we can get to Crimea. We can't fly through Poland, they don’t let us go there either. We need to work out a way to get our people to Crimea. Work with the Minister of Transport of Russia and report back," Lukashenka said.

The new package of sanctions, which included the national company “Belavia”, forced it to return the planes that had been purchased on lease. Thus, it had to halve its air fleet from 29 to 15 planes.

In the "Editors Club" program Ivan Eismont commented on this:

"It made me laugh how long it took our residuary pseudo-independent non-governmental media to speculate about how Belavia would collapse when the leased planes would be taken away from it. And it turned out that Cherginets gave these planes away a long time ago and managed to buy new ones. And nothing has changed”.

This is not true. Cherginets did not buy anything at that time. According to Belavia's official statement on its website, the airline was only planning to do so. And that is going to happen closer to the summer of 2022. Here is a quote from that message:

"The airline was forced to reduce its air fleet. At the moment the airline's fleet consists of 15 planes, which is quite enough to perform all flights planned for the winter season - both regular and charter ones. By the summer season, Belavia plans to increase the fleet by acquisition of aircraft in the ownership, as well as the conclusion of leasing contracts with companies that are not residents of the EU”.