How Belarus became a rear base for Russia’s war on Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian officials announced plans last March to build a large-scale drone factory in neighboring Belarus, presenting the project as a step toward strengthening the “national security and the economy” of Moscow’s closest ally.

Kremlin Deputy Chief of Staff Maxim Oreshkin said the plant could produce up to 100,000 drones per year once fully operational, though no timeline was provided. Officials stopped short of explicitly describing the drones as military systems.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko publicly welcomed the proposal during meetings in Minsk, with discussions to follow on site selection and implementation details.

Although framed as an industrial development initiative, the announcement underscored the accelerating integration of Belarus into Russia’s military-industrial ecosystem amid sanctions and the ongoing war in Ukraine.

From industrial to war production

That integration is no longer limited to individual projects. Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Belarus’ civilian economy, industrial base and logistics infrastructure have been steadily repurposed to support Moscow’s war effort.

In an interview with Ukrinform, Oleh Luhovskyi, first deputy head of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, told The Washington Times that “since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the Belarusian military-industrial complex has been integrated into the Russian one.” He said more than 80% of Belarusian enterprises are now involved in fulfilling Russian state defense orders.

Mr. Luhovskyi said Belarus has effectively become Russia’s sole strategic ally on its western flank, acting as a rear base that supplies ammunition, unmanned systems and repair services for Russian military equipment while helping Moscow circumvent Western sanctions.

Independent assessments broadly support that picture. In its 2025 annual report, the Latvian Constitution Protection Bureau estimated that 500 Belarusian companies had been integrated into Russia’s military-industrial production system, many after receiving state subsidies to reprofile their output.

Firms with experience in dual-use sectors such as microelectronics, optics, chemicals and heavy vehicles now supply components and finished military goods. Belarusian logistics networks channel foreign-made parts to Russian defense producers.

The bureau assesses that Belarus provides Russia with about 480,000 artillery and rocket shells annually and confirms that Moscow is considering building a drone factory in Belarus with a capacity of up to 100,000 units per year.

The Latvian service concludes that Belarus’ civilian economy is increasingly structured to serve Russia’s war effort, allowing Minsk to support the Kremlin militarily “while avoiding direct engagement in the hostilities.”

Loss of economic sovereignty

For Belarus, this transformation is the result of political and economic forces set into motion well before February 2022. Katia Glod, an expert on Belarusian politics and regional security and a nonresident fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, argues that the roots of today’s dependency lie in the collapse of Belarus’ post-2020 balancing act.

Before Western sanctions took effect, Belarus maintained a relatively diversified trade structure. Roughly 40% of its trade was conducted with Russia and about 30% with the European Union.

That balance has since disappeared.

“Today, around 70% of Belarus’ exports go to Russia,” Ms. Glod told The Times. “If you factor in intermediate imports and reliance on Russian infrastructure, the real dependence is closer to 90%.”

Once European routes closed, she said, Belarus reoriented toward Russia, which “is large enough to absorb almost anything.”

Sanctions cut off European markets, forcing state-owned and private Belarusian firms alike to reorient toward Russia as their primary outlet. The pivot has been accompanied by the steady militarization of production.

Ms. Glod said the shift has impacted a swath of the Belarusian economy beyond traditional defense enterprises.

“It’s no longer just defense companies,” she said. “Companies that previously produced civilian or dual-use goods are now supplying components and materials for the Russian military.”

Cheap Russian energy, long presented by Minsk as an economic advantage, has reinforced this dependency. As Ms. Glod puts it, “What has been lost is not just political autonomy but economic sovereignty.”

Detailed evidence of this transformation comes from BelPol, a Warsaw-based monitoring organization formed by former Belarusian security officials aligned with the country’s democratic forces.

BelPol estimates that 500 Belarusian enterprises of various forms of ownership, state and private, are now involved to some extent in fulfilling Russian defense orders.

“The economy is built ‘for the client,’ and the main client is Russia,” BelPol told The Times, stressing that this reality “is not even hidden by officials.” The group said some enterprises have been modernized using Belarusian state funds or loans, while others have been reoriented or repurposed for military production.

Concrete examples illustrate the scale of the shift. The Legmash factory in Orsha, once a producer of sewing machines, now manufactures casings for 122-millimeter Grad rockets. BelAZ, best known for producing massive mining dump trucks, performs galvanic processing of components used in artillery shell production. Zavod SVT, part of the Amkodor holding, produces control units for Russia’s Satan and Avangard intercontinental ballistic missiles and is involved in drones and artillery fire control systems.

BelPol also reports the construction of facilities designed to close the production loop inside Belarus itself. One such project, the ZKI Casing Products Plant, under construction since 2024, is intended to assemble 122-millimeter rockets and 152-millimeter artillery shells, including explosive filling.

The aim, BelPol says, is to create “a maximally closed-loop weapons production cycle” on Belarusian territory, further insulating Russia’s war effort from sanctions pressure.

Satellite state without annexation

Hanna Liubakova, a Belarusian journalist and nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, situates these developments within a broader pattern of political and military subjugation. Belarus, she argues, has not been annexed but absorbed. What looked like independence was “dependency in disguise.”

After the fraudulent 2020 presidential election and the violent crackdown on protests, Mr. Lukashenko “had only one direction to turn,” and Moscow seized the opportunity. In November 2021, Belarus and Russia endorsed 28 Union State integration programs covering taxation, customs, energy and finance. Those measures, Ms. Liubakova writes, “eroded Belarusian sovereignty while preserving the facade of statehood.”

The war accelerated that process. Belarus opened its territory, airspace, railways and fuel infrastructure to Russian forces, enabling the initial assault on Kyiv. More than 700 missiles were launched from Belarusian territory from February 2022 to March 2023. Though Minsk has avoided sending its own troops into combat, Ms. Liubakova said, “Belarus has transitioned from a reluctant ally to a satellite state,” surrendering control over its military and security policy in exchange for Kremlin backing.

The long-term consequences remain uncertain.

BelPol warns that a war-driven industrial model carries serious risks for Belarus. “If the war ends and the defense order dries up,” the group cautions, “these enterprises may find themselves with nothing, having lost their capacity for civilian innovation.”

Ms. Glod said that although the process is not irreversible, “what has happened in practice — businesses reorienting, logistics being rewired, troops training together — will take time and political will to undo.”

Taken together, the assessments of Ukrainian, Baltic and Belarusian analysts point to a clear conclusion: Belarus has become a critical rear-area extension of Russia’s war machine. Its factories, transport corridors and energy resources now underpin Moscow’s ability to sustain a prolonged conflict under sanctions.

For the Kremlin, Belarus offers decisive control without the costs of formal annexation. For Minsk, however, the price is a steady erosion of economic, military and political autonomy that may well outlast the war itself.