The BELPOL initiative, with the participation of the Community of Railway Workers of Belarus, has prepared an analytical report titled “The Militarization of Belarus”. The report’s four parts examine how the Lukashenka regime is preparing society, military and civilian infrastructure, the economy, and legislation for war. According to BELPOL’s assessment, threats to European security cannot be viewed only on a five-to-ten-year horizon: the available data point to considerably shorter timeframes.
Section 2.2, “Preparation of Belarusian Railway for Covert Military Transport,” was prepared by our team. Using Belarusian Railway (BCh) as an example, it shows how a civilian railway is being turned into a tool for the covert and rapid transfer of troops of the joint Belarusian-Russian force grouping.
The 2022 Experience
From January 17 to April 11, 2022, 11,889 railcars carrying military cargo with a total weight of about 230,000 tonnes were delivered to Belarus: 8,002 railcars with equipment, 1,300 with ammunition, 946 with fuel, and 730 with personnel. Unloading took place at 27 BCh stations. For the subsequent withdrawal of the grouping in April 2022, 4,101 empty cars, including 250 passenger cars, were sent from Russia to Gomel station (more details). We covered that deployment in detail in our previous joint report with BELPOL.
Who managed these shipments is clear from a letter sent by BCh’s Transport and Logistics Center to the Arbitration Court of the Moscow District in a case concerning the Russian Ministry of Defence’s debts for railcar demurrage. The letter states that representatives of the Russian military communications directorate were permanently present at the Belarusian Ministry of Defence, “carried out the planning and management” of the shipments and “had all complete information concerning military rail transportation.” Shipments were agreed at a joint meeting of representatives of the Belarusian Ministry of Defence, the Russian Ministry of Defence, BCh, and Belintertrans.
Security Officials in Railway Management
In 2021, BCh introduced the post of Deputy Head of the Railway for Security Support of Enterprises. It was filled by Ihar Kazlouski, a former officer of the KGB central office. Similar deputy positions were created in all six railway divisions, filled by people who came from the KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the State Border Committee (more details).
By the end of 2023, the security regime departments had received additional powers and were supplemented by the information security units of the BCh Administration and the Main Computing and Information Center. This created a network with access to internal information, employees’ personal data, and the railway’s information systems (more details). In 2024, the General Technical Service, which is responsible, among other things, for organizing military transport and liaising with the Ministry of Defence, the KGB, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was placed under the leadership of a former Ministry of Internal Affairs official with no prior experience in railway transport.
Armed Guards and Video Surveillance
In 2023, 121 BCh facilities with 729 video cameras were connected to the Republican Public Safety Monitoring System; the plan calls for this to grow to 484 facilities and 2,916 cameras. The Ministry of Internal Affairs is granted access to the system, while the railway bears the costs (more details). The staff of BCh’s Paramilitary Security Service was increased by 130 guards for round-the-clock protection of 13 bridges, and the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Internal Affairs transferred 1,132 Makarov pistols and 76,976 rounds of ammunition to the service (more details).
Military Personnel at the Traffic Control Center
According to our sources, since the preparations for the Zapad-2025 exercise, a group of military personnel has been permanently working in the building of BCh’s Traffic Control Center in Minsk (1 Stekolny Lane). The core of this group consists of the military communications bodies of the Belarusian Ministry of Defence, along with representatives of communications and classified information protection units. The entire eighth floor, about 600 m², has been allocated to the group. Access requires special passes, there is a round-the-clock armed post at the entrance, and the group numbers between 20 and 30 people (more details).
Military personnel are directly involved in organizing shipments, while the approval chain and the number of employees in the know both shrink. Most railway workers learn about a military shipment only within the scope of their own task: preparing the track, supplying a locomotive, receiving the train. The full picture is held only by the TCC, the military communications bodies and a small circle of senior managers.
Backup Traffic Control Centers
In addition to the main TCC, BCh has six backup centers, one in each division. Their locations are classified. Since March 2022, the backup TCCs have been brought out of mothballs and inspected, and as of August 1, 2026, the work has gone beyond periodic checks: preparations are underway at all backup centers, including the backup TCC in Kroshyn. This makes it possible to maintain control over train movements and military transport if the main center in Minsk is taken out of operation (more details).
Closed Infrastructure for Troop Trains
On the site of the former Krychaw-6 air base, under the guise of a “logistics center,” a railway complex has been built for a Russian military facility: eight tracks, loading and unloading infrastructure, and a separate block post, “Track Post 245 km”, with electrically interlocked switches. It can be controlled from Krychaw station and from the TCC, with railcars delivered directly onto the closed site, bypassing public station areas (more details). In late December 2025, a troop train of 61 railcars carrying Russian equipment, gear, and ammunition was shunted onto the former air base. As of mid-May 2026, no return shipment had been recorded. There is no confirmation that “Oreshnik” launchers and missiles were delivered (more details).
Near the 1405th Artillery Ammunition Base by the village of Bolshaya Gorozha in Asipovichy District, on the Asipovichy-2 – Yelizovo section, a new junction is being built: a receiving-departure track at least 1,050 m long, access, passing and loading tracks, and electrically interlocked switches with remote dispatcher control. By the end of December 2025, construction was nearing completion (more details).
For the new production of artillery and rocket ammunition at the Zavod Korpusnykh Izdeliy (Hull Components Plant) CJSC in Slutsk District near Novodvortsy station, a loading and unloading ramp has been set up. Explosives, components, and finished products will be moved from it by road over more than 40 km (more details).
Military Transport After 2022
After the withdrawal of the northern invasion grouping, the railway’s military use did not stop, but its nature changed. In 2024, 216 railcars carrying military-purpose cargo were delivered from Russia to Belarus, 161 of them to arsenals, aviation ammunition storage bases, and depots (more details). In the summer of 2024, 94 gondola cars loaded with missiles for air defense missile systems were dispatched from the 1562nd Air Defense Repair and Technical Base near Asipovichy to the 23rd Arsenal of the Russian Ministry of Defence’s Main Missile and Artillery Directorate (GRAU) (more details).
In August–September 2025, six troop trains were used for the Zapad-2025 exercise and CSTO exercises. Units of the 2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division, the 4th Guards Tank Division, the 333rd Combat Training Center of the Russian Armed Forces, and the 98th Guards Airborne Division were transported (more details).
In total, 764 railcars carrying military cargo passed from Russia into Belarus in 2025, and 1,154 traveled in the opposite direction. From September to December, 168 railcars were sent from Belarusian arsenals and storage bases to GRAU arsenals, 157 of them loaded with explosive materials. In January–April 2026, 219 railcars were dispatched to Russia, including 126 carrying MZKT products (more details).
Conclusions
In 2022, BCh proved its ability to receive and deploy a large troop grouping in a short period of time, and this experience has been retained within the military transport planning system. Since then, railway management has been staffed with security officials, routes have been placed under armed guard and video surveillance, military personnel work permanently inside the TCC, the backup control network has been brought to readiness, and closed facilities such as Krychaw-6 make it possible to unload troop trains away from public stations. The mechanism for interstate coordination, forming and routing troop trains is regularly tested during exercises and can be reactivated at short notice.
The report’s overall conclusion is that as long as the current regime remains in power in Belarus, the country will not escape Russia’s sphere of influence. The authors recommend introducing sectoral sanctions against Belarus’s state military-industrial complex, keeping sanctions against enterprises working on Russian defense orders in place until the aggression against Ukraine fully ends and a peace treaty is concluded, and banning the supply of components for communications, signals intelligence, and electronic warfare equipment.
The full text of the report in English is available below:
