The Belarusian Investigative Center, with the help of the “Rabochy Rukh” initiative and support from the “CyberPartisans,” has published an investigation into the supply of Belarusian machine tools to Russian military-industrial complex enterprises.
The equipment was supplied by the Belarusian Machine Tools Trading House, registered in Smolensk. The company presents itself as a dealer for nine Belarusian machine-building enterprises.
Documents obtained by the investigators show that in the second half of 2025 alone, the trading house received payments from 20 Russian military-industrial complex enterprises. During that period, they transferred 79.3 million Russian rubles to the dealer, or about $988,000.
The company’s largest customer was the V. A. Degtyarev Plant, a small arms manufacturer. The Kalashnikov concern and LOMO also received equipment.
The investigators were unable to determine exactly what products were supplied.
At the same time, the authors found arbitration proceedings involving Belarusian Machines indicating that the company also supplied German-made machine tools to Russian defense industry enterprises.
The investigators also established that at least one piece of European-made equipment was supplied to Belarusian Machines by TradeServiceGroup, a company registered in Vitsyebsk.
The Russian Belarusian Machines trading house and the Belarusian TradeServiceGroup have common owners. One of them is Siarhei Labatsevich, a serving Belarusian football referee. In the second half of the 2000s, he worked at the Vistan machine-building plant in Vitsyebsk. His business partner, Siarhei Fadzeyeu, is also connected to football: in 2005, he spent a season playing for FC Orsha in the second division of the Belarusian championship.
The full investigation can be read here.
