Prosecutor General: about 17m people would have lived in Belarus had it not been for the war

If not for the Great Patriotic War, the population of Belarus would now be 80 percent larger – as noted by Prosecutor General Andrei Shved, speaking at the international conference dedicated to the genocide of the Soviet people in Grodno

In his speech, Mr. Shved noted that the fight against Nazism has not ended and requires decisive measures to be taken by states, “This is a consequence of the fact that the descendants of the Soviet people who won the Great Patriotic War have begun to forget the lessons of history because of the destructive information influence directed primarily at the younger generation. A number of unfriendly states are carrying out direct propaganda of Nazi ideology, along with which Nazi criminals and their accomplices are glorified and the events of the Great Patriotic War are freely interpreted.”

That’s why the Prosecutor General’s Office is investigating the criminal case of the genocide of the Belarusian people during the Great Patriotic War and the post-war period, initiated in April 2021. New facts of the atrocities committed by the Nazi invaders on our land are constantly being established as part of the investigation, and the court decisions in this case are a necessary measure to combat Nazism in the legal sphere and to counter the glorification of Nazi criminals.

Mr. Shved emphasised that the scale of the tragedy of the Belarusian people turned out to be much bigger than previously thought. According to him, this is evidenced not only by the results of the criminal case investigation, but also by the results of the national scientific project: Genocide of the Civilian Population of the BSSR during the Great Patriotic War: Historical and Legal Assessment.

“According to the data obtained, if the war had not happened, there would be about 17 million people living in Belarus today, i.e., 80 percent more than the current population. As a result, the country’s economy is missing about half of its GDP annually,” the Prosecutor General explained.

The problem of the genocide during the Great Patriotic War is complex, and it is necessary to involve specialists in various fields, in its study, including experts from the Russian Federation. It is for this purpose that the international scientific and practical conference has been organised.