Lukashenko Repeats Stupid Soviet Schemes
- 20.11.2025, 10:26
The USSR had already tried to turn back the rivers.
Lukashenko on November 18 held a meeting with officials to discuss the program for the development of the Belarusian Polesie until 2030. The program will be led by Mikhail Rusyi, Lukashenko's representative in Brest Oblast.
According to BELTA, among other things, Lukashenko drew attention to the water resources of the Polesie's main waterway, the Pripyat River, which flows into the Dnieper River in Ukraine.
"Where do these waters go? It would be good if Ukraine used the Dnieper waters completely... These waters go to the sea. So why don't we think today that this water should be 'brought back' when and where it is needed," Lukashenko said at the meeting.
According to Lukashenko, the leadership of Gomel region had earlier suggested to him to return to the topic of the Dnieper-Bug canals, and he instructed the chairman of Gomel regional executive committee Ivan Krupko to make a corresponding proposal.
"When he made this suggestion, my eyes went dark. Because we simply don't have that much money," Alexander Lukashenko said.
The canal system in Polesie connects the Dnieper with the Vistula River, which flows into the Baltic Sea, writes "Crimea.Realii". Under a project to restore the waterway, called E-40, financially supported by the European Union, it could have carried up to 6 million tons of cargo annually, but the war in Ukraine and the breakdown of economic ties between Belarus and Poland have frozen the project.
The project to turn Siberian rivers southward was tried by the Soviet Union's administration in the early 1980s, citing the need for water resources for agriculture in the Central Asian republics.
The project required extraordinary financial investment, which the country has not been able to afford. Having wasted huge funds, the project was finally stopped when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the USSR.
The phrase "turning of the Siberian rivers" became an example of wastefulness of the Soviet authorities.