20 Roubles Belarus Liberation From Nazi Invaders

Belarus lost somewhere between a quarter and a third of its entire population during the German occupation — proportionally among the worst losses of any territory in the war. The partisan movement operating from the Naliboki and Belovezhskaya forests was extensive enough that German forces mounted repeated large-scale anti-partisan sweeps, burning villages wholesale. Khatyn, destroyed in March 1943, became the symbolic center of Belarusian wartime memory and was chosen over Khatyn' in Russia specifically to avoid Cold War confusion.

The 2009 issue falls within a broader Belarusian commemorative program marking the 65th anniversary of liberation, which the Red Army completed by August 1944.