Will McDonald’s Return to Belarus?

Pavel Latushka, Deputy Head of the United Transitional Cabinet of Belarus, Representative of the Cabinet for the Transition of Power, Head of the National Anti-Crisis Management, Leader of the "Latushka Team and the Movement 'For Freedom'" faction within the 3rd convocation of the Coordination Council.

In 2022, McDonald’s announced it would cease operations in Belarus due to serious complications stemming from Russia’s war against Ukraine — a war in which Lukashenko backed Moscow by allowing Belarusian territory to be used for attacks. This decision came shortly after the company exited Russia in May 2022, where its business was sold to a local entrepreneur and rebranded as "Vkusno i Tochka".

So what did Lukashenko do with McDonald’s?

He declared, "This is now our enterprise", and said that Belarusian companies should fill the gap left by McDonald’s. In April 2023, the restaurants were rebranded as Mak.by, a name that preserved the brand’s recognizability. Mak.by is operated by KSB Victory Restaurants, which retained access to McDonald’s recipes and sources its ingredients from within Belarus.

However, by September 2023, a lawsuit was filed in the Economic Court of the Minsk Region, and in January 2024, the case was transferred to the Supreme Court. The lawsuit was brought by the State Property Committee of Belarus against KSB Victory Restaurants Pte. Ltd., a Singapore-based company, and its Belarusian subsidiary managing the former McDonald’s outlets. The aim of the lawsuit: to shut down the company and confiscate its assets in favor of the state. The basis for this legal action was a newly adopted law allowing the seizure of property from foreign companies and nationals for so-called "unfriendly actions against Belarus".

In January 2024, Lukashenko announced that the restaurant network had been transferred to the state and then sold to a private investor — "a reliable Belarusian guy". Information about the new owner(s) of the Mak.by fast food chain was classified, and their details were removed from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs.

In Belarus, hundreds of entrepreneurs have faced prison, interrogations, and asset seizures. Many were only released after transferring millions to accounts linked to the regime. This isn’t an exception — it’s a systematic approach. As far back as 2014, representatives of the security forces openly spoke of the goal to "squeeze a billion dollars out of business".

Since then, pressure has only intensified: widespread inspections, punitive fines, and criminal charges against businesspeople accused of "extremism" or "aiding opposition financing". Lukashenko doesn’t even need to hide behind "national interests" — his apparatus simply seizes businesses whenever it sees fit.

As long as Lukashenko remains in power, Belarus will continue to be a zone of risk, instability, and economic disaster. His path is not one of modernization, but one of deliberate isolation and self-destruction.

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