State Secretary of the Union State Dmitry Mezentsev spoke at the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus at the Republican meeting of the scientific community dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Belarusian science. Here is the full text of his speech.

Dear Vladimir Grigoryevich (V.G. Gusakov, Chairman of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus - editor's note), dear participants in the high and so significant meeting for the Republic of Belarus, for Russia, for the Union State. Today, under these vaults, a very informative and capacious report was made by the Chairman of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences, dedicated to the formation of national science, the formation of scientific and research schools on the territory of Belarus.

Vladimir Grigoryevich, we listened to your message with great interest, you very reasonably and fairly named the names of those scientists who formed the practice of scientific research in the Soviet era, those people who, going down into the depths of history with their achievements, glorified the Belarusian land.

I would like to note the decision that Alexander Lukashenko made by declaring the current year 2022 the Year of Historical Memory. Vladimir Grigorievich has now confirmed the fairness and honesty of his approach in assessing the contribution made during the Soviet period by researchers who were born on Belarusian soil, who came to work in Belarus from all over the Soviet Union and who did not share their achievements and did not correlate them with any state and administrative borders. It is very important.

For all those in Belarus who are connected with the programs of the Union State, with the practice of our bilateral cooperation, it is important to fill the Year of Historical Memory with concrete steps that will allow us to take a much more detailed and deep look at these hundred years of Belarusian national academic science and our history, and in those 250 years that are being celebrated this year, when the Belarusian people, the people of Little Russia, Great Russia became united on the basis of European administrative documents and when a single history began to form much more densely, and by all people without exception living on the territory of historical Russia, new pages began to fit in, which help us today to be proud of a single history - a single history of academic science in Belarus, the successes of Russian scientists, researchers who today operate in the Commonwealth of Independent States, inheriting schools and traditions, the scale of which we feel today, and on the foundation of potential which operate national economies and scientific schools.

On November 4 of the past year, President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, members of the Supreme State Council approved in their own way a historical document, which, within the framework of the Union Treaty, forms a new, to a certain extent, historical stage. 28 union programs have been approved. If you remember, earlier they were called road maps. A very comprehensive document of 28 components. It is very difficult to give priority to any of these allied programs, because they are complex, mutually balanced and deeply thought out. The stage of work on these programs until 2024 has been determined so that almost 400 normative and legislative acts have been prepared, anticipating a new, even deeper stage of economic integration.

Quite recently, within the framework of the Address of the President of the Republic of Belarus to the people and the Parliament, we heard very capacious, principled assessments of the integration, which is seen as a strategy for Belarus. President Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko dismissed any speculation, which is sometimes deliberately thrown into the public opinion of Russia and Belarus, that someone wants to absorb Belarus, someone wants to become a threat to national sovereignty and independence.

Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin clearly defined that the Union State is a format, institution and mechanism for the integration of Belarussia, primarily economic. And here, it seems to me, the cooperation that the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus signifies with the National Research Center of Russia "Kurchatov Institute" of the Russian Academy of Sciences is that promising set of meaningful, large-scale steps that will determine the inclusion of applied and fundamental science in the work on the Union Program for unified industrial policy, under programs to prevent unjustified competition, in the formation of unified approaches in the agro- and agricultural sector.Today, the governments and heads of the Central Banks of Belarussia, by a decree signed on November 4, 2021, have set reporting milestones. This year, national governments and regulators in the financial sector will present their reports to the Union Council of Ministers on how joint work is going on at the initial stage of economic integration. But within the framework of this joint work, it is important to support the activities that scientists and researchers of our fraternal countries have carried out, are carrying out and are ready to carry out on a larger scale. It is in this regard that I want to emphasize once again that, in addition to the 28 allied programs as a powerful algorithm and strategic plans for interaction, there is such an institution as the “Union State Programs”, which is fully funded from the allied budget. And we would like this year, jointly - precisely jointly - the Ministry of Science and Education of Russia, in cooperation with the State Committee for Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education of Belarus, under the supervision of the Standing Committee of the Union State, to come up with a draft resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Union State on the creation of infrastructure for fundamental and applied scientific research.

We see and obviously know how much the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus has done to ensure that the applied component in support of ensuring national economic sustainability and competitiveness is implemented. We see how many developments have been introduced into the real economy. But we also understand that the backlog of Soviet science in carrying out fundamental research is not endless.

We have nothing to hide from each other. Today there is an opportunity to rely on the powerful scientific potential of fundamental research, which in the post-Soviet period, especially after Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin came to the leadership of the country, was further developed. And here the obvious leader is the National Research Center "Kurchatov Institute".

I remember very well the algorithm of interaction that Vladimir Grigoryevich Gusakov and Mikhail Valentinovich Kovalchuk determined at a joint meeting last year by signing the so-called cooperation road map. So, in order for us to be stronger and more competitive, we do not need to prove to each other that in some areas we are a little better, more successful. We just need to combine this success for the sake of a single competitiveness. And this, we will see, will be the focus of the resolution of the Council of Ministers, on the draft of which we are already working, on the creation of a unified infrastructure for fundamental and applied scientific research in the Union State. And in parallel with this, we consider it necessary to ask national governments and interested ministries to speed up work on the preparation of a new draft intergovernmental agreement on scientific and technological cooperation, because the current document was signed in 1996. At that time, there could be no talk of any digitalization of the national economy in the social sphere, of any consideration of modern digital technologies, or proposals from the developers of artificial intelligence. It seems to us very important to modernize this document, make it adaptive, with an emphasis, among other things, on the integration economic program.

Let me emphasize that today we will demand much more proposals that will form the basis of the programs of the Union State. A lot has already been done. Over the years of the Union Treaty, 49 programs have been implemented for a total of 48 billion Russian rubles. Of course, it would be better if we said: this is the total amount - 48 billion Belarusian rubles, but the fact is the fact. In this regard, we also ask you to take a closer look at those proposals that are promising for researchers working under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. We are promising in the cooperation that is obvious and successful today in interaction with Russian partners. And this interaction, taking into account the preservation of the potential of Belarusian science, the preservation of the potential of Russian science, can provide new advantages that increase competitiveness.

The response to violations by Western partners is a much more trusting, sincere, comradely, partnership style, we count on this in our work under the auspices of the Academy of Sciences, the Kurchatov Institute and, of course, the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the Russian Science Foundation and the Partner Foundation, Head which today was awarded a high award, which was presented by Maxim Vladimirovich Ryzhenkov, head of the Fundamental Research "Belarusian Science".

Today it seems promising work in the space sector, in the field of materials science, genetics, biotechnology, the development of new medicines, in the agricultural sector.Here is the Minister of Health of the Republic of Belarus Dmitry Leonidovich Pinevich. He, like all, without exception, employees of the Ministry of Health of Belarus, employees of the healthcare system in Russia, over these two years got an incredibly lot of experiences. It was necessary to show courage, patience and consistency in protecting the health of people and saving their lives. And you know how the national leaders, the heads of our states, President Putin, President Lukashenko, carefully and very kindly evaluate the heroic work of doctors. But there would be no such success in the fight against COVID if there were no developments, including a vaccine. Dmitry Leonidovich and I remember how the decision taken by President Putin to supply the Sputnik V vaccine was implemented. We organized the supply of new vaccines. Today, both the production of the vaccine and its bottling have been launched.

I would also like to note that the work of researchers in the field of virology continues. At the Institute of Experimental Medicine in St. Petersburg, preclinical studies of the so-called kefir probiotic vaccine have almost been completed, which I had the opportunity to talk about at a conference dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the CIS, which was held by Vladimir Georgievich Gusakov and his team. Today we got acquainted with the developments of the Institute of Influenza, located in St. Petersburg. These are developments dedicated to very promising areas in the fight against tuberculosis. And the leadership of both institutes confirmed their readiness to cooperate more closely with their Belarusian colleagues. Dmitry Leonidovich Pinevich, together with his colleague from the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Albertovich Murashko, recently held a joint board meeting.

Speaking about the probiotic kefir vaccine, I would see it possible to reiterate our position: we are ready for the further promotion of the vaccine to become a program of the Union State with full or almost full funding from the Union budget.

And at the end. Today we are talking about the fact that the position of national leaders in defense of the historical memory dedicated to the feat of the Soldier of Victory is unique, it is united. Most recently, in December, Natalya Ivanovna Kochanova welcomed the exhibition, which, at the initiative of the Standing Committee and Moscow Mayor Sergei Semenovich Sobyanin, was presented by the museum workers of Moscow, dedicated to the defeat of the Germans near Moscow. Events dedicated to the anniversary of the lifting and breaking of the blockade of Leningrad have just passed. Formally, this does not apply to the topic of our today's conversation. The film "Seventh Symphony" was shown in Minsk. There were a lot of young people, there were Suvorov students, students of the military academy, young officers, representatives of civilian universities. And we looked very closely at their reaction. The reaction was extremely sincere and excited, because few of them imagined what happened 80 years ago near Moscow and how the city of Lenin withstood the blockade. But there are other formats when we have to talk with young people about what was, what is today and what will be tomorrow. This includes efforts to promote romance and the labor of scientific inquiry.

I would like to invite Alexander Alexandrovich Kovalenya and his colleagues to talk about a series of books dedicated to our history, but not in the academic format of a publication that we are used to, but in the format of a series of books that could collect contradictory facts under one cover , which are interpreted differently by different strata of both Russian and Belarusian societies.

For example, a conversation about Field Marshal Kosciuszko and Field Marshal Paskevich, who each understood their duty to the state in their own way, published under one cover, could become an occasion for public discussion and open a series of historical books and publications of those research materials that interpret history differently. But we have one history for many centuries, just like the victory in the Great Patriotic War, we have one, no matter how much anyone wants to teach it.

Vladimir Grigoryevich, I am addressing you, the members of the presidium, representatives of the academic science of Belarus with a proposal and an invitation. We are ready for more interaction, for more conversation, for more meetings with access to substantive steps, including in the publishing sector. I will say again that today we are preparing together with you 10 new concepts for the programs of the Union State. Today we are talking about the need to expand the potential of the Union budget, including the inclusion in the program of the Union State of joint work, which is being worked on by the best representatives of Belarusian and Russian science, modern, active, functional managers and employees. This is a serious work that we are ready to promote, which can also in its own way support the traditions of Belarusian academic science, which is 100 years old today.

Thanks.

Source: Standing Committee of the Union State

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