Portal:Belarus

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Сардэчна запрашаем да беларускага партала!
Localização da Bielorrússia

Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an area of 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) with a population of 9.1 million. The country has a hemiboreal climate and is administratively divided into six regions. Minsk is the capital and largest city; it is administered separately as a city with special status.

For most of the medieval period, the lands of modern-day Belarus was ruled by independent city-states such as the Principality of Polotsk. Around 1300 these lands came fully under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and subsequently by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; this period lasted for 500 years until the 1792-1795 partitions of Poland-Lithuania placed Belarus within the Russian Empire for the first time. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution in 1917, different states arose competing for legitimacy amid the Civil War, ultimately ending in the rise of the Byelorussian SSR, which became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922. After the Polish-Soviet War (1918–1921), Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland. Much of the borders of Belarus took their modern shape in 1939, when some lands of the Second Polish Republic were reintegrated into it after the Soviet invasion of Poland, and were finalized after World War II. During World War II, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a quarter of its population and half of its economic resources. In 1945, the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union. The republic was home to a widespread and diverse anti-Nazi insurgent movement which dominated politics until well into the 1970s, overseeing Belarus's transformation from an agrarian to an industrial economy.

The parliament of the republic proclaimed the sovereignty of Belarus on 27 July 1990, and during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Belarus gained independence on 25 August 1991. Following the adoption of a new constitution in 1994, Alexander Lukashenko was elected Belarus's first president in the country's first and only free election after independence, serving as president ever since. Lukashenko heads a highly centralized authoritarian government. Belarus ranks low in international measurements of freedom of the press and civil liberties. It has continued several Soviet-era policies, such as state ownership of large sections of the economy. In 2000, Belarus and Russia signed a treaty for greater cooperation, forming the Union State. (Full article...)

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Europe holds the greatest concentration of abolitionist states (blue). Map current as of 2021
  Abolished for all offences
  Retains death penalty
  Legal form of punishment but has had a moratorium for at least ten years

Belarus is the only country in Europe that continues to carry out the death penalty. As of early 2025, capital punishment remains a legal penalty, with at least one execution confirmed in 2022 and a death sentence issued in 2024. The death penalty has been part of Belarus's legal system since its independence from the Soviet Union on August 25, 1991.

The current national constitution permits the death penalty for "especially grave crimes." The list of capital offenses was expanded in 2023 to include high treason. (Full article...)

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Statkevich in 2010

Mikola Viktaravich Statkevich (Belarusian: Мікола Віктаравіч Статкевіч, Russian: Николай Викторович Статкевич, romanized: Nikolai Viktorovich Statkevich; born 12 August 1956) is a Belarusian politician, and opposition leader who was a presidential candidate at the 2010 Belarusian presidential election. Since 31 May 2020 he was held in prison by Belarusian authorities. Viasna Human Rights Centre recognized him as a political prisoner. On 14 December 2021, Statkevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison. He was released on 11 September 2025 as part of a deal between the Belarusian government and the United States. (Full article...)

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Did you know (auto-generated)

  • ... that the Russian and Belarussian military exercise Zapad 2009 involved nuclear-capable ballistic missiles?
  • ... that the Russian and Belarusian military exercise Zapad 2013 was officially described as counterterrorist, but international observers concluded that it was a preparation for a conventional war?
  • ... that Obliskomzap People's Commissar for Public Charity V. L. Mukha resigned in protest over the dispersing of the First All-Belarusian Congress?
  • ... that Rufina Bazlova has used traditional embroidery to depict protests in Belarus?
  • ... that there are more than 9,000 swamps in Belarus?
  • ... that German national Rico Krieger was likely forced by the Belarusian KGB to lie in a state-televised plea titled "Confession of a German Terrorist"?
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Sources

  1. ^ Kopka, D. (2011). Welcome to Belarus: Passport to Eastern Europe & Russia. Passport Series. Milliken Publishing Company. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-7877-2770-3. Retrieved July 28, 2019.
  2. ^ Harshav, Benjamin. Marc Chagall and his times: a documentary narrative. Contraversions: Jews and Other Differences. Stanford University Press; 1 edition. August 2003. ISBN 0804742146.
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