Fake war veterans on STV

Minsk Zavodski District authorities and Belaya Rus organized the demonstration of a historical film for war veterans and ex-prisoners of concentration camps. Lyudmila Yafremava and Uladzimir Tsishkevich shared their impressions on STV. Journalists called them ‘veterans of the Great Patriotic War’. However, ‘the veterans’ look about 60 years old and their participation in the Great Patriotic War seems questionable.  

“Veterans are getting younger and younger every year,” Syarhei Chaly wrote on Facebook.

Euroradio decided to find the veterans and asked the Belarusian Civil Association of Veterans about them.

“Yafremava is not a war veteran, she is a labour veteran!” the civil association replied. “She used to be the head of a primary cell here.”

The Belarusian Association of Veterans knows nothing about veteran Tsishkevich who said ‘us, the old, do not need anything more than attention and kindness’ on STV:

“In any case, he is not on our veterans’ or war lists. If he were a veteran, he would have definitely been added on the lists. However, not all veterans of labour have joined us because participation in our organization is voluntary.”

According to the official information, 17 773 veterans of the Great Patriotic War lived in Belarus as of January 1, 2015. 4492 of them lived in Minsk. If veterans of the Great Patriotic War joined the army at the age of 18 in 1944, they should be at least 89 years old now.

The news about veterans starts at 4:49 in the video.