BelTA

What is BelTA?

BelTA is the Белорусское телеграфное агентство, the Belarusian Telegraph Agency. Its own page describes it as “Основанное более 100 лет назад” and states that it “остается главным источником официальной информации и новостей страны и мира” — in its own words, the main source of official information and news of the country and the world.^[2]

The belarus.by portal, headed “Official Website of the Republic of Belarus”, states on a page dated 1 August 2026: “The largest national media outlets are the Belarusian Television and Radio Company (Belteleradiocompany), the Second National TV Channel, Stolichnoye Televideniye, the Belarus Segodnya publishing house, the Zvyazda publishing house, the BelTA News Agency.” It adds: “The BelTA News Agency is the country's biggest news agency, having the correspondent network in all the regions of the country.”^[3] BelTA's own page, however, presents belarus.by among its own resources, as a “Портал-визитка о Беларуси, ориентированный в первую очередь на зарубежную аудиторию”, a portal about Belarus aimed first of all at a foreign audience; that description of BelTA is therefore not independent of the agency.^[2] The agency's page itself opens: “БЕЛТА - крупнейшее информагентство Беларуси.” That is its own claim.^[2]

The President's portal counts “5 news agencies: 2 state-run agencies and 3 private agencies” among registered media. It prints the date of that count as “As of 1 April 20256”.^[4]

What does BelTA cover?

Sport sits on a path of the agency's site, belta.by/sport. The section's own description reads: “Все о спорте в Беларуси, новости футбола, хоккея, биатлона, тенниса, баскетбола, волейбола”.^[1] When retrieved, it also carried handball, kickboxing and acrobatic sports.^[1]

Its items of 25 September 2026 included “«Мешков Брест» возглавил таблицу гандбольного чемпионата Беларуси”, a report that the kickboxer Nechitailo had won at a world Grand Prix in Japan, and an announcement that BATE and club legends would play 2DROTS in Borisov.^[1] Those are one day's items.

The agency states that it publishes online “около 250 информационных материалов ежедневно”, about 250 items a day, and that its portal works in seven languages: Belarusian, Russian, English, German, Polish, Spanish and Chinese.^[2] Those figures cover all its subjects, not sport alone.

Under the heading “Печатные активы БЕЛТА” the agency lists the magazine Беларуская думка, the newspaper 7 дней and the magazine Экономика Беларуси, and it states that it has “Более 30 иностранных медиапартнеров”, more than 30 foreign media partners.^[2]

How large is BelTA's audience?

The agency's own page states: “Просмотров в сутки - около 450 000”, about 450,000 page views a day, and “Аудитория - более 180 стран мира”, an audience in more than 180 countries.^[2] Those are the agency's own figures, not an audited measurement, and the page gives no date for them.

No audited web-audience measurement for Belarusian sites was retrieved. The measured audience figures retrieved for Belarus are for television, published by ЗАО «МедиаИзмеритель», and do not cover news agencies. The agency's English-language site, eng.belta.by, refused retrieval, so its English sport output could not be examined.

Since when has BelTA existed?

The agency states that it was founded more than 100 years ago: “Основанное более 100 лет назад, Белорусское телеграфное агентство”.^[2] It gives no founding date on that page, and no founding date was retrieved from an independent source.

The footer of its sport section reads: “БЕЛТА - Новости Беларуси, © Авторское право принадлежит БЕЛТА, 1999-2026 гг.”^[1] That is a copyright notice for the site, not a founding date for the agency.

Why does BelTA matter in Belarus's sport?

The President's portal counts two state-run agencies among five registered news agencies, without naming them.^[4] The belarus.by portal, which BelTA lists among its own resources, names it among the largest national media outlets.^[3][2] The Ministry of Sport's home page links to BelTA in its block headed “Интернет-ресурсы”.^[7] Its sport section reports domestic championships, among them handball, and Belarusian results abroad.^[1]

Ownership. The President's official portal lists BelTA under its heading “State Bodies”.^[8] No statement of the agency's owner or founder was retrieved from its own pages or from a register. The Ministry of Information publishes registers of media on its site, but the list of online media retrieved from it is a Word file that could not be read, so the agency's entry there could not be checked.^[5]

A monitoring body. RSF's 2026 entry for Belarus, which ranks the country 165th of 180, states in its legal framework section: “The Belarusian authorities have changed laws to give a legal veneer to attacks on press freedom.”^[6] RSF's entry names no news agency; its words concern the Belarusian media as a whole, not BelTA.