Despite warnings from various services and painful real-life cases, people are still deciding to take up residence in Belarus, reports „Delfi“. This time a politician from the Šalčininkai district and a group of farmers went there because, as he says, he just wanted to see a tractor factory, and he also visited Minsk. 

„Delfi“ received a photo from a reader from the excursion of farmers from the Šalčininkai district to Belarus in October. Among them was the member of the municipal council of the Šalčininkai district Tadeusz Rudzis (first from left).

„After receiving advance payments from the Republic of Lithuania and the European Union for the declared agricultural areas, the farmers of the municipality of Šalčininkai district (…) spent their time and the received payments in Belarus with the illegally elected President Aliaksandr Lukashenko at the Minsk Tractor Plant.

Farmers in the district of Shalchininkai are spending their time in a country that is holding over a thousand political prisoners, including the famous human rights defender and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiacki, and in a country that is supporting the war in Ukraine," the person who wrote the letter said angrily.

Explaining why they were going, T. Rudzis, a member of the municipal council of Šalčininkai, who is himself a farmer, explained that they just wanted to see the tractor factory. They were going on their own initiative, they were not in contact with any politicians.