Belarus Is Still Building Hardware for the Russian War Machine – The National Interest

Belarus Is Still Building Hardware for the Russian War Machine  The National Interest

A new report from dissident group BELPOL highlights specific instances of Belarusian factories producing military components for the Russian armed forces. A row of tractors on display at a state-sponsored trade show in Minsk, Belarus, in May 2021. Belarusian vehicle factories have produced the beds for Russian anti-air missile systems, in addition to other military and dual-use goods. (Shutterstock/Dmitry Morgan) Since February 2022—when Russian troops invaded Ukraine from its northern border with Russian-allied Belarus, then were defeated north of Kyiv and forced to retreat—Belarus has maintained an uneasy peace with Ukraine. Longtime Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has denied that Belarus is on Russia’s side in the ongoing war, and publicly proclaimed his country’s neutrality.

However, Belarus is still broadly aligned with Russia—and according to a new report from Belarusian dissident organization BELPOL, its factories continue to produce key dual-use systems that support the Russian defense industry. That includes the Smorgon Optical Machine Tool Plant, an open joint-stock company, which has so far avoided being sanctioned by either the European Union (EU) or the United States. Since the start of the war, BELPOL has conducted several investigations into how integrated the Belarusian economy has become with the Russian military-industrial complex. This week, it exposed that the optical plant was fulfilling Russian state defense contracts, specifically for the Su-35 Flanker-E and Su-57