“Changes in logistics, caused by sanction limitations, serve not as a constraint, but rather as an impulse for exploring new routes”, Belarusian Railways (BZhD) boss Valeriy Verenich recently commented to state media. How much of that statement is true, and are sanctions really an opportunity for the company? Let’s look at some recent data.
In the world of (European) rail freight, Belarus may be small, but it is not an entirely irrelevant country. It hosts a major border crossing for Asia-Europe traffic, near the Polish town of Małaszewicze. Belarus, therefore, enjoys not only domestic, import and export traffic, but also significant transit flows that exceed its rail imports.
Sanctions have not put an end to transit traffic for Europe-bound goods from Asia, but have severely limited imports and exports with the EU. Many goods are prohibited from entering the EU altogether. That has forced Belarus to look elsewhere, and options are not plentiful: Russia is its only “friendly” neighbour.
“In cooperation with Belarusian businesses, we have developed and implemented transit shipments through Russia, utilising both seaports and overland routes”, BZhD CEO Verenich said. “We are strengthening international cooperation with foreign railways through both bilateral and multilateral formats, including within international transport organisations and integration associations. We are developing efficient delivery schemes for Belarusian products to alternative markets.”
Growth or no growth?
Verenich lists many positive recent developments: shipments to Central Asian countries grew by between 10% and 30%, and BZhD is now expanding operations along the International North-South Transport Corridor. It also participates in transport to Pakistan, all the way to the Indian Ocean.
In other words, things are happening. Yet, the raw numbers still show a significant decline in transport volumes for the rail operator. In 2018, BZhD moved nearly 160 million tonnes, but in pandemic year 2020, that slowed to 125 million tonnes. Invasion year 2022 brought another drop: from around 129 million tonnes down to 103 million tonnes: -19.7%. In 2023, the rail freight volume dipped below 100 million tonnes.
EU rail exports grow despite sanctions
Belarus may be exploring new routes, as Verenich said, but it has not been able to offset sanction (and pandemic-related) losses. In fact, despite the sanctions, traffic with Belarus’ eastern partners has not grown substantially. Rather, it has shrunk. The volume of freight between Belarus and other countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU, which includes Russia) declined by 6.6% between 2023 and 2024: from 57,9 to 54,7 million tonnes.
By contrast, BZhD reports that rail exports to EU member states expanded in 2024 compared to 2023 by 19.1%: from 2,3 million tonnes to nearly 2,8 million tonnes. Yet, the overall movement of goods between the EU and Belarus still dwarfs that of the EAEU: it amounted to around 10 million tonnes in 2024, less than 20% of the Eurasian Economic Union trade.
An interesting observation here is that Belarus imported more goods from the EAEU and exported less. The opposite is true for the EU: Belarus exported more in that direction, and imported less from its western neighbours. Yet, its exports to the EU remain very modest and amounted to fewer than 10% of the total rail exports of the country.
China is the way forward…
In 2025, Belarusian Railways aims to develop container and intermodal transportation. “The development of container transportation is an important issue in the current situation. There is a global “containerisation” of transportation in terms of the container becoming a universal means of transportation, a container for various types of cargo”, its CEO said in September 2024.
This is not entirely surprising in light of the fastest growing major business category for BZhD, which is transit from China. Between 2023 and 2024, it more than doubled: from around 1,3 million tonnes to 2,8 million tonnes. Chinese transit is responsible for approximately a quarter of all transit, and so remains relatively modest.
However, it is the only major country from which rail traffic is showing serious growth potential. Going into the future, Belarusian efforts to mitigate some of the recent economic damage will likely have to focus on capturing as much container traffic as possible.
… but it’s beyond predictability
To answer the question from the introduction: Sanctions are hard limitations, and so they clearly are not a positive factor. And despite the claims of the CEO of Belarusian Railways, the company has not managed to find significant alternative sources of revenue and volumes in other directions. The only promising market segment going into the future, again, seems to be Chinese container transit. But that business, too, is heavily dependent on tariffs, trade wars, geopolitics and European purchases of Chinese goods. Its future remains therefore uncertain.