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Lukashenko urges to ensure labor discipline during harvest campaign

MINSK, 21 July (BelTA) – Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko has ordered that those who perform poorly or violate labor discipline in agriculture, especially during the harvesting campaign, be drafted into the army as he hosted a nationwide video conference to discuss the 2026 harvest campaign on 21 July, BelTA has learned.

“Why should we be putting people in handcuffs when we have a labor shortage? Pass on my instruction to Khrenin [Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin]: everyone who doesn’t know how to work must join the army and go straight to the southern border. Into the woods. Our Special Operations Forces are deployed along the Ukrainian border by my order,” the president said. “This doesn’t mean we are going to attack anyone. We are not attacking anyone, we are ensuring our own security. It’s not easy out there with all the mosquitoes, flies, bugs, and all that. Send them there, into the army as regular soldiers. Give them a week of training with a grenade launcher or machine gun, and place them at the disposal of the Special Operations Forces.”

“Send everyone who fails to carry out instructions there. This is my order. Any official, whether in the government, regional, or district executive committees, will be sent to a farm to work on a tractor or a harvester. Don’t know how to tighten bolts? You will be an assistant, fetching the ‘shells.’ Any failure to comply means going straight into the army. Let them serve. They will be sitting in the woods. We need personnel there, too. Let them serve there during the harvest season. This goes for both officials and those who doesn’t want to work,” Aleksandr Lukashenko added.

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