Lukashenko's Iranian trap
Today we will try to examine yet another economic and geopolitical miscalculation by the Lukashenko regime. The analysis shows that the regime is tying the country's transport and oil system to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is sinking both economically and militarily.
At the end of August 2026, Iran was gripped by an acute fuel crisis. Kilometre-long queues at petrol stations in Tehran, Isfahan and Tabriz, the paralysis of domestic logistics and a record devaluation of the national currency became symptoms of a systemic collapse. Against this background, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated directly that Iran is "in its dying economic agony", and that Washington and its allies are launching a large-scale campaign of "economic strangulation" of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Bessent publicly warned that the United States intends to systematically, tranche by tranche, impose harsh secondary sanctions against all of Tehran's allies and accomplices without exception. The US Treasury Secretary's quote to Fox News should sound like an alarm bell in Lukashenko's palace: "We want this conflict to end. The fastest way to end it is to provide no support to Iran. We will systematically identify and eliminate every such bad actor."
And it is precisely at this moment that the dictatorial regime in Minsk decides to act as one of the key fuel sponsors and logistics partners of the Tehran regime. The attempt to profit from Iran's fuel famine and to use the International North–South Transport Corridor will cost Lukashenko immeasurably more than the short-term gain he expects to receive.
To understand the scale of the dictatorship's involvement in these schemes, let us turn to operational data on rail shipments and export consignments disclosed by the Community of Railway Workers of Belarus.
In 2025, through the line of just one major logistics operator, the state enterprise Belorusneft-Trans, 594,687 tonnes of Belarusian petroleum products in 10,359 tank cars were sent via Russian port stations. The absolute core of this flow is motor fuel: 444,360 tonnes of motor petrol and 112,498 tonnes of diesel fuel. Together they account for 93.6% of all the enterprise's port shipments.
But where are these colossal volumes of high-octane petrol and diesel going? The statistics on the geography of shipments reveal an anomalous, critical concentration on the Caspian direction. The port and export stations of the Astrakhan hub of the Volga Railway and the Republic of Dagestan, namely the stations of Trusovo, Novolesnaya and Makhachkala, received a total of 520,850 tonnes, or 87.6% of the entire export port flow of Belorusneft-Trans!
Let us break this logistics chain down link by link:
Trusovo station (Astrakhan Region): The largest destination. 300,078 tonnes of petroleum products (including 246,232 tonnes of petrol and 53,846 tonnes of diesel fuel) were sent here to Terminal Ilyinka LLC. Terminal Ilyinka is not an end consumer, but a specialised oil loading complex designed to receive fuel from Belarusian rail tank cars, store it temporarily and load it into river-sea class tankers.
Novolesnaya station (Astrakhan Region): 198,258 tonnes of cargo (154,672 tonnes of petrol and 43,586 tonnes of diesel fuel) were delivered to Transoil Terminal LLC. This is the second most powerful transshipment complex in the Caspian region, operating in tandem with the tanker fleet.
Makhachkala station: 22,514 tonnes of petroleum products passed through it.
The two Astrakhan terminals alone, Ilyinka and Transoil, accumulated 498,336 tonnes, which amounts to 83.8% of the total volume shipped by Belorusneft-Trans through Russian ports.
For comparison: the once-key North-Western Baltic direction shrank in 2025 to a modest 61,800 tonnes (with 36,008 tonnes of petrol going to Luzhskaya station and 21,142 tonnes of oils to Predportovaya station).
How does this chain work as a whole? The route is extremely transparent:
Stage 1: Trains are formed at Barbarou station (serving the Mazyr Oil Refinery) and Navapolatsk (Naftan).
Stage 2: Transit via Russian railway networks to the Astrakhan hub (Trusovo, Novolesnaya).
Stage 3: Loading into Caspian tankers and sea passage to Iran's northern ports: Anzali, Caspian, Amirabad and Nowshahr.
Stage 4: The fuel is used either directly to relieve the acute shortage on the Iranian domestic market, or transited across Iran by tanker trucks and rail to the southern port of Bandar Abbas for subsequent delivery to third countries of the Global South within the International North–South Transport Corridor.
After the closure of the European market and the blocking of transit through Ukraine in 2022–2024, the Lukashenko regime found itself completely dependent on Russian port infrastructure. However, strikes on the infrastructure of Ust-Luga and the Baltic terminals, as well as a sharp rise in freight costs in the North-West, forced Minsk to look for an "emergency exit".
The Caspian-Iranian vector seemed to Lukashenko an ideal salvation. First, it allowed him to sell fuel directly to Iran, which is suffering from a refining crisis. Second, it opened access to the Indian Ocean.
But the dictator made a strategic mistake. By betting a significant part of his special rail exports of petroleum products on the Caspian card, Lukashenko entered into a direct coalition with the regime in Tehran precisely at the moment when the US and its allies moved to the final phase of the forceful and economic elimination of the IRGC's resource base.
When Scott Bessent announces the "systematic elimination of bad actors", he does not mean abstract entities. Entirely specific legal entities and individuals fall into the crosshairs of the US Treasury and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC):
Belarusian shippers and producers: Mazyr Oil Refinery OJSC, Naftan OJSC, the state enterprise Belorusneft-Trans.
Transport operators: the Belarusian Railway (BZhD) and the fleets of specialised tank cars involved in the scheme.
Russian logistics proxies: Terminal Ilyinka LLC, Transoil Terminal LLC, Global Trade LLC, as well as Caspian shipping companies and the tanker fleet.
What exactly will this mean for the Lukashenko regime and, unfortunately, for our country's economy, as long as an illegitimate ruler remains in power?
Every tank car of petrol sent via Trusovo and Novolesnaya towards Iran is recorded by US satellite and financial intelligence. The imposition of direct blocking sanctions (SDN List) against Belorusneft-Trans, BZhD and associated banking structures means a complete freeze of any remaining international settlements. No schemes involving yuan, dirhams or crypto assets will save companies that come under targeted pursuit by the US Treasury as part of the "strangulation of Iran".
A significant share of port exports is tied to the Caspian trade route. If the US imposes secondary sanctions against sellers and carriers, or if military action escalates in the Caspian region with the blockade of the Iranian ports of Anzali and Amirabad, almost 90% of Belarus's Caspian fuel exports will stop in a single day.
Minsk simply has no alternative routes. Russia's North-Western port region (Ust-Luga and St Petersburg) is overloaded, is under constant threat of drone attacks and shows a drop of more than 50% in the transshipment of Belarusian petrol. The Murmansk direction (the First Murmansk Terminal), where individual trains were sent on a trial basis via Kola station, can handle only a drop in the ocean. The Black Sea is blocked by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
By tying Belarusian exports to Iranian transit, Lukashenko has turned Belarus's state assets into hostages. Instead of being a transparent, Europeanised hub, Belarus under Lukashenko's leadership has turned into a "grey carrier" supplying fuel to internationally ostracised regimes.
Lukashenko is selling out Belarus's national interests for the chance to obtain short-term cash from his Iranian and Russian allies.
In addition, Lukashenko continues active military cooperation with Iran. A heavy cargo Boeing 747 of the airline Qeshm Fars Air, registration EP-FAB, is flying to Minsk for the third time in the last few weeks. The airline and its aircraft have been under US sanctions since 2019 for cooperating with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in arms deliveries. According to flightradar24.com data, the aircraft departed Tehran on 8 September 2026 at 1:00 AM UTC and arrived in Minsk at 6:18 AM UTC.
Before that, the aircraft flew to Minsk on 26 August. On 27 August, EP-FAB departed Minsk, made an almost five-hour flight over Russian territory, and then returned to the Belarusian capital. The next day, 28 August, it flew to Tehran. The cargo Boeing 747-281F(SCD), registration EP-FAB, belongs to the Iranian cargo airline Qeshm Fars Air. On 24 January 2019, OFAC added Qeshm Fars Air and two of its Boeing 747s, including EP-FAB, to its sanctions list. This carrier is controlled by Mahan Air and operated cargo flights on behalf of the IRGC's Quds Force, including delivering weapons and other military equipment to Syria.
In addition, a secret arms trafficking network involving Iranian and Belarusian parties that supports the Houthi insurgent movement in Yemen was exposed earlier. Iran stepped up arms deliveries to the Houthis using aircraft of the Belarusian transport company Rada Airlines (already under sanctions). It delivered cargo from Tehran to undisclosed locations in the Red Sea area (Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan). From there, part of the cargo was transferred by small vessels to Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. The network was engaged in the covert transfer of weapons and military technology to these areas in violation of international arms embargoes. The operation reportedly relied on a combination of forged transport documents, dual-use goods and indirect routes through third countries to conceal the origin and final destination of the shipments. The structures of the Lukashenko regime are believed to have provided logistical support and supplied components, while Iranian operatives coordinated transshipment via sea and land routes from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea.
As a result, a few days ago the Houthis used drones to damage the strategic East–West oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia, which could cost the global market 4% of its oil supply. On the same day the pipeline was hit, the same Houthis seized the strategically important island of Perim in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and effectively established control over shipping on this crucial global transport route.
Just recently, on 15 September 2026, Belarusian Defence Minister Viktar Khrenin met with Iran's Deputy Chief of the General Staff Mohammad Taghi Osanloo on the sidelines of the Beijing Xiangshan Security Forum. The parties "confirmed their commitment to further strengthening bilateral cooperation in the military sphere".
As representatives of democratic Belarus, we declare:
The Belarusian people must not pay for the dictator's adventures. Supplying fuel to the Iranian regime is the personal initiative of Lukashenko and his inner circle, not the choice of Belarusian society.
We warn the management of BZhD, Belorusneft-Trans, the Mazyr Oil Refinery and Naftan: participation in logistics chains supplying Iran, at a time when the US has announced an operation for the "economic strangulation" of the IRGC, is a direct path to personal international sanctions.
We will appeal to our international partners, the US, the European Union and the United Kingdom: when introducing tough measures against the Caspian-Iranian route, sanctions must be clearly targeted at the wallets and logistics operators of the Lukashenko regime, while preserving opportunities for Belarus's future economic transformation.
Belarus does not need transit through Iranian deserts under the threat of American missiles and sanctions. Belarus needs a return to civilised, understandable and premium European markets. But this will only become possible when the toxic dictatorship that is dragging our country to the bottom together with rotten terrorist regimes in Asia is dismantled. Support for Tehran will become for Lukashenko not a lifebuoy, but a cast-iron weight that will finally drag his regime to the bottom.
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