Students were routinely roped in for harvesting in the Soviet Union.
“With what examples are we bringing up our schoolchildren?” he told a government meeting.
“They say it’s exploitation. But how is it exploitation if a person works for five or six hours? It’s a pleasure for the parents and good physical training for children.”
Lukashenko, a former manager at a collective farm, remains very attached to agriculture.
In 2020, he advocated saunas, a glass of vodka daily and working in farms on tractors to ward off the coronavirus.
Belarus, which borders Ukraine, is a staunch ally of Russia and allowed its territory to be used by Moscow’s troops to launch a military operation against Kyiv in February.
