Lukashenko Stripped Another Half A Million Belarusians Of Their Benefits

This refers to residents in areas contaminated with radiation.

Belarusian authorities have decided to drastically reduce the number of settlements classified as radioactive contamination zones. Among those being removed from the list are Gomel, Luninets, Lelchitsy, and Ivye, although experts warn that a change in a territory’s legal status does not in itself mean that radiation risks will disappear. Starting in 2027, social benefits that families in these cities have enjoyed for decades will also begin to disappear, writes Deutsche Welle.

A Decline of 566,000 People. What the Authorities Have Decided

The Belarusian government has updated the list of settlements and facilities located in areas of radioactive contamination. The decree was signed by Prime Minister Alexander Turchin, and it will take effect on January 1, 2027.

The scale of the changes is significant. According to the previous list, approved in 2021, the areas of radioactive contamination included 2,022 settlements with approximately 930,600 residents, as well as 49 facilities. Now, the list will include 1,845 settlements—177 fewer—and 33 facilities. But the number of people officially considered to be living in contaminated areas will change particularly noticeably: it will drop to 364,2 thousand, a decrease of 566,4 thousand. Among the settlements removed from the list are Gomel, Luninets, Lelchitsy, and Ivye.

The government attributes the revision to an improvement in the radiation situation. Between 2021 and 2025, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Health surveyed areas contaminated following the Chernobyl accident: they collected soil samples and assessed radiation exposure levels for the population. According to the official account, the results showed a “significant improvement in the situation” in certain settlements.

However, as early as April 2025, Alexander Lukashenko publicly questioned the current scope of the Chernobyl exclusion zone. “What have we been doing for the past 30 years, if we have 900,000 people living in contaminated areas? Why are you still citing figures from 40 years ago? We need to bring them in line with reality,” he said.

Anna Skrygan, Ph.D. in Geography and Associate Professor of Ecology Anna Skrigan notes that the revision of the boundaries itself is not extraordinary: Belarusian law provides for such a revision every five years. The calculations take into account, in particular, the half-life of radionuclides and the estimated internal radiation dose. Cesium-137, with a half-life of approximately 30.5 years, remains the primary contaminant in Belarusian territories following the Chernobyl disaster.

However, according to Skrigan, the current decision should also be viewed in a broader context. As early as the mid-2000s, a state policy of “overcoming the consequences of the disaster” took shape in Belarus, one element of which was the return of affected territories and lands to normal economic use.

“These territories cannot be called absolutely safe”

Ecologist and expert with the “Green Belarus” alliance Inessa Bolotina is critical of the authorities’ decision. In her opinion, the mere fact that the levels of major radionuclides have decreased is not enough to consider the problem solved.

“The half-lives of the main contaminants—cesium-137 and strontium-90—are about 30 years. But this does not mean that they have disappeared; rather, it means that there is now about half as much left, and they continue to affect living organisms. In radioecology and physics, it is generally accepted that levels drop to a minimally detectable level—less than 0.1% of the initial amount—after approximately ten half-lives. “In our case, we’re talking about roughly 300 years,” Bolotina explains.

She also points out another problem: the contamination is unevenly distributed. Even within areas that are now changing their status, there may still be isolated plots with higher concentrations of radionuclides. According to Bolotina, there are places in Gomel and Lelchitsy with cesium-137 contamination exceeding 1 Ki/km².

In addition, the expert points to americium-241. Its concentration in the soils of the Gomel region, she says, continues to increase and will approach its peak in the 2060s. This radionuclide is concentrated primarily in the upper soil layers and is more mobile than plutonium isotopes, which increases the likelihood of it entering living organisms.

Anna Skrigan also notes that there is no scientific certainty that would allow such areas to be declared completely safe.

“When it comes to radiation exposure, the no-threshold concept applies: there is no such thing as an absolutely safe level of radiation exposure; any dose carries a potential risk. We have a good understanding of the mechanism by which high doses cause acute radiation sickness, but the consequences of long-term exposure to low doses are much less well understood. Moreover, contamination in Belarus is highly patchy: levels can vary significantly even within a single forest area. “Therefore, it is impossible from a scientific standpoint to state unequivocally today that living in such areas is absolutely safe,” says Skrigan.

Another problem, according to Skrigan, is the lack of transparency in decision-making. The methodology for calculating internal doses was developed by a small group of specialists, and the source data is difficult to find in the public domain. Therefore, it is difficult to independently assess the validity of changes to the boundaries of contaminated territories.

What will residents of cities designated as “clean” lose?

A territory’s status is linked to social benefits, and once the resolution takes effect, some of these benefits will disappear for residents of excluded settlements. Among the most significant are subsidized health resort treatment, priority placement for students in dormitories, and preferential admission to educational institutions. The authorities have provided an exception for children. Minors who live or study in areas being removed from the “contaminated” category will retain the right to free meals until June 2027.

According to Anna Skrigan, this decision could be particularly painful for people approaching retirement age. They have lived for decades in areas officially recognized as contaminated and made plans based on the support provided by the state.

“When changing the status of such areas, the principle of a just transition should have been applied. Transparent communication with the public was needed: the government should have explained in detail the scientific and methodological basis for the decision and presented the data on which it is based. A hybrid system for a phased phase-out of benefits could have been developed—for example, maintaining medical monitoring for certain groups or gradually reducing support based on age,” Skrigan believes.

Inessa Bolotina believes that the existing benefits were a form of compensation for living in a contaminated area, though she considers even them to be insufficient. According to the environmentalist, the government should not only have continued to support the population but also taken a more cautious approach to the commercial use of land affected by the Chernobyl disaster.

“Contaminated lands should not have been put into economic use, creating a situation where people work on them and consume the produce grown there. Now another problem arises: if an area is no longer legally considered contaminated, the motivation to continuously monitor the radiation situation there and implement special measures to protect the population also disappears,” says Bolotina.

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