As of January 1 of the current year, Belarus is home to 14.5 thousand veterans of the Great Patriotic War, as reported to a BELTA correspondent by the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection.
As of January 1 of the current year, Belarus is home to 14.5 thousand veterans of the Great Patriotic War, as reported to a BELTA correspondent by the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection.
Currently, two Heroes of the Soviet Union, who received this high title during the Great Patriotic War, live in Minsk: Michurin Vasily Sergeevich and Kustov Ivan Ilyich. In the republic, among 9.6 thousand participants of the Great Patriotic War, 2.5 thousand are disabled.
Due to advanced age, illnesses, and the consequences of injuries, the number of Great Patriotic War veterans decreases each year. Thus, in 2015, 3.3 thousand war veterans passed away, and in 2014, approximately 4.3 thousand people did.
As of January 1 of the current year, the republic had 4 thousand individuals awarded USSR orders or medals for selfless labour and impeccable military service in the rear during the war, as well as 252 individuals who worked at air defence facilities, construction of defensive structures, and in front-line railway and road sections, and crew members of vessels interned in the ports of other states at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
As of January 1, there were over 60 people remaining in Belarus who participated in special formations in demining territories and facilities after liberation from German occupation in 1943-1945. The country is home to over 570 people who worked in enterprises, institutions, and organisations in Leningrad during the blockade and were awarded the medal "For the Defence of Leningrad" and the badge "Resident of Blockaded Leningrad".
The republic has fewer than 800 disabled individuals from childhood due to injuries, concussions, or mutilations related to combat operations during the Great Patriotic War or their consequences. There are 838 family members of fallen soldiers and partisans.
22.9 thousand residents of the republic have been recognised as former prisoners of Nazi concentration camps, prisons, ghettos, and other places of forced detention.