Belarus President makes new appointments

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Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko appointed Yuri Tertel the head of the State Inspectorate on Wildlife Protection under the President of Belarus.

“Your task is to get to know the personnel to bring order to the inspectorate and sort things out in animal and plant protection," the President said.

“There will be a lot of speculations that Lukashenko returned to the policy of appointing military to civilian organizations. I am not afraid of this. But you should be ready for this. More so, I would not say that the state inspectorate is a civilian organization. With the vision that I have for it, this organization is more of a military type,” the head of state noted.

The President said that this state agency was set up on his initiative and on the basis of certain agencies using their personnel in order to save budget money and does not inflate the numbers of people in uniform. “Nature is our main asset. God gave us beautiful nature. This gift, however, cannot last forever if treated badly. We need to preserve it and take care of it. This inspectorate was set up with exactly these goals in mind,” said Aleksandr Lukashenko.

He added that the inspectorate workers have started forgetting about their primary duties. “In an attempt to combat offenders and poachers, some of them became poachers themselves. Therefore, I had to fire a number of people from their posts in the inspectorate and instructed to find a well-disciplined, military man,” the head of state said.

Aleksandr Lukashenko added that the State Inspectorate on Wildlife Protection under the President is a special agency, some of its staff are armed. “This means it is a paramilitary unit, and any lack of discipline is inadmissible. I hope you will bring order to the system,” the Belarusian leader said.