A Scientist Slammed Lukashenko's Decision
2- 5.08.2026, 10:19
- 3,840
The authorities decided to stop the radiation with a decree on paper.
Belarus has updated the list of settlements and facilities located in areas of radioactive contamination. A total of 177 territorial units have been removed from the list, including Gomel, Luninets, Lelchitsy, and Ivye. The corresponding resolution of the Council of Ministers was signed by Prime Minister Alexander Turchin, who moved quickly to carry out Lukashenko’s instructions. Recall that during a meeting on this issue, the dictator asked: “What have we been doing for the past 30 years, if we have 900,000 people living in contaminated areas?”
It is noted that from 2021 to 2025, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Health conducted an analysis of areas contaminated with radionuclides—and the study showed a significant improvement in the situation in certain settlements.
The resolution will take effect on January 1, 2027. Free meal benefits will remain in effect until June 2027 for minors living in and/or attending educational institutions located in areas being removed from the category of contaminated territories.
On paper, the number of settlements located in areas of radioactive contamination has decreased—what does this mean for Belarusians? “Filin” discussed the decision with Sergei Besarab, a radiation chemist, catastrophic risk researcher, and independent auditor of Belarus’s radiation infrastructure .
— From a radiochemistry perspective, the authorities’ claims about soil decontamination are pseudoscientific manipulation. The half-life of the main contaminants—cesium-137 and strontium-90—is 30 years. In other words, only one half-life has elapsed since the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. Today, in the biosphere of, for example, Luninets, more than 40% of the isotopes’ original lethal activity remains.
Furthermore, I do not see the issue of americium being raised in official reports. International experts, however, are paying particular attention to this, since the activity of americium—unlike that of cesium and strontium—is increasing.
According to calculations, this activity will peak between 2050 and 2060. Under these conditions, how do the authorities justify safety? It turns out they can’t.
Officials (after all, we don’t hear a single voice from a scientist, a radiation chemist, or radiologist) are now altering mathematical models and artificially, by administrative decree, underestimating in official documents the proportion of forest and garden produce consumed by Belarusians, relying on theoretical assumptions that people now buy “clean” food in stores.
But the isotopes remain in the soil. This trick by officials allows them to reduce the estimated radiation exposure to people on paper.
— What consequences might this decision have?
— There is a risk of an increase in cancer cases. A long-term national catastrophe linked to cancer and cardiovascular diseases is possible. This is legalized madness.
Because these issues are raised only within the Belarusian information space and never reach a wider audience, a radiation nightmare is unfolding in our country.
It is worth noting that the decisions being made also have a budgetary component. I believe that the state is currently in a state of internal financial default regarding its social and environmental obligations to the people.
It takes centuries for background radiation levels to decrease, yet the lives of half a million people in our country have been upended in just a couple of years due to a political decree from above.
Consider, for example, free school meals, which were developed by Soviet scientists back in the 1990s. This was not intended to simply fill stomachs, but—in accordance with the laws of competitive displacement—to block the absorption of strontium-90 and cesium-137 from contaminated water and food, so that these isotopes would not enter the children’s muscles.
Now, with this decision, the regime is shifting the financial burden off itself and passing the cost of purchasing clean food onto the already strained wallets of provincial residents. Furthermore, the revocation of the “radioactive” status legally nullifies the enormous expenses incurred by logging companies and agricultural holdings for incoming and outgoing laboratory radiological testing of raw materials.
It turns out that contaminated peat, timber, and feed grain are now legalized at the state level.
— How can people living in areas that have now been removed from the list of contaminated sites protect themselves?
— Buy a spectrometer and test their food… Of course, many people today just take things as they come and leave it up to fate. But we must understand that radiation does not forgive recklessness or foolishness. Today, the authorities have decided to stop radiation with a decree on paper…
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