Opinions & Interviews

Alexander Lukashenko attended the aviation sport festival dedicated to the 80^th anniversary of the DOSAAF Minsk aeroclub and the 70^th anniversary of Belarus’ liberation from the Nazis. The head of state visited the Aviation Equipment Museum which displayed such sports promoted by DOSAAF as children’s motorcycle soccer, carting, ship modeling, aviation and car modeling. The President talked to DOSAAF pilots and veterans of the club, met with pilot-cosmonauts Piotr Klimuk and Oleg Novitsky, test pilots Viktor Pugachev and Yevgeny Frolov, Russian artist Leonid Yakubovich.

DOSAAF unites over 115,000 people and promotes 19 technical, aviation and military sports. The aviation unit of the society comprises five aeroclubs with 11 helicopters, 26 planes, 14 sailplanes. The aeroclubs annually provide training to 60-70 students of the aviation department of the Military Academy of the Republic of Belarus, 43 sport pilots. Over 200 sportsmen do parachuting. Athletes of the aeroclub have won numerous international competitions. Five children’s schools of DOSAAF train the reserves for the national teams of Belarus. In 2013 DOSAAF earned Br262 billion from all kinds of activities. There were no loss-making companies in DOSAAF last year.

Alexander Lukashenko believes that DOSAAF should become a strong organization which will train specialists for the Defense Ministry. The head of state got familiar with a plan to modernize the Lipky airfield. The head of state gave instructions to work out projects to upgrade this territory. Alexander Lukashenko believes that DOSAAF needs to expand the resource base in order to train more pilots and drivers, including for the Defense Ministry.