Tag: belarus

Belarus Tests Largest Unmanned Helicopter in CIS — Sky-Truck Takes Flight

Belarus has begun flight tests of the Sky-Truck, the largest unmanned helicopter in the CIS, capable of carrying up to 600 kg of cargo over 480 kilometers.

The Minsk-based design bureau Unmanned Helicopters has launched flight trials of the Sky-Truck, a multi-purpose UAV that represents the most advanced unmanned helicopter project in the post-Soviet space. With a flight range of up to 480 km and endurance of four hours, the Sky-Truck can deliver between 500 and 600 kg of cargo to remote or hard-to-reach areas.

The drone is intended for a wide range of uses, from the urgent delivery of medical supplies and food to transportation of military equipment and other critical cargo. Its maximum speed of 180 km/h and take-off weight of over two tons make it the most powerful UAV of its kind in the region.

The Sky-Truck’s massive 12.8-meter rotor is powered by a turboshaft gas-turbine engine running on aviation kerosene. Initially designed around the Russian VK-650 engine, the UAV has also been adapted to accommodate various Rolls-Royce powerplants, giving it flexibility for both domestic and international applications.

Large-scale unmanned helicopters of this size have rarely been showcased in Russia or the wider CIS. The Sky-Truck’s development signals a new level of ambition in Belarus’s aerospace sector, combining heavy-lift capacity with unmanned versatility.

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Guess What DOGE Found Your Money Is Funding Now!

There are times when reading a list of projects funded by the United States federal government sounds more like parody than reality.

The Department of Government Efficiency — unlike Congress, it seems — is still working hard every day to identify and eliminate waste and fraud from the federal government funded by our taxpayer dollars. And this week’s update included some profoundly idiotic programs and grants that were, until now, recipients of our hard-earned cash.

DOGE normally releases a contracts update on X on Fridays highlighting some of the stupidest agency contracts that it has discovered in the last week, and this past week‘s was a doozy: “Over the last 5 days, agencies terminated 50 wasteful contracts with a ceiling value of $2.9B and savings of $762M, including a $2.4M DoD contract for ‘transgender health medical evaluation unit services’, a $128.5k DoD contract for ‘LGBTQ magazine advertising campaign’, and a $48.7M USAID contract for ‘the Belarus Regional Initiative to provide transition activities in Belarus and other countries in Europe’.” 

One wonders what exactly that is supposed to mean. Whenever a description is that vague and meaningless, you can guess it covers up something shady.

In conclusion, the X post stated, “DOGE wishes the hardworking American taxpayers a great Labor Day weekend!”

DOGE also had an interesting contracts update last week, on August 24: “Over the last 5 days, agencies terminated 163 wasteful contracts with a ceiling value of $1.9B and savings of $647M, including, a $35M USAID contract to ‘acquire contractor support to establish and manage a flexible, quick response mechanism supporting activities that will support democracy and stability in El Salvador’, a $280k DOI contract for ‘horse mounted patrol groom services’.” You can bust your brains trying to figure out why the heck we would be funding horse mounted patrol groom services. I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of any good reason.

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Rubio: Belarus Releases Imprisoned U.S. Citizen 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced the release of a United States citizen who was imprisoned in Belarus. 

On Sunday, Rubio wrote in a post on X that “Belarus just unilaterally released an innocent American, ANASTASSIA Nuhfer, who was taken under JOE BIDEN!” crediting President Donald Trump for his leadership.

Rubio also said that Christopher Smith, State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Eastern Europe and Policy and Regional Affairs, “from our team did a great job on this.” 

No further information has been released on Nuhfer or his release.

On Sunday, Belarus is holding its national presidential election. Currently, President Alexander Lukashenko is expected to get another term on top of his three decades in power. 

Many of Lukashenko’s opponents are calling the election fake, similarly to how it was labeled in 2020, triggering months of protests. According to the Associated Press (AP), the protests led to over 65,000 arrests, with thousands beaten, bringing condemnation and sanctions from the West.

As of right now, Belarus holds approximately 1,300 political prisoners, despite Lukashenko pardoning over 250 people since July.

However, in operations against the friends and family of political prisoners, officials have arrested hundreds more in an effort to quell opposition.

AP also reported that those who have donated money to groups opposing the president have been sought out by officials and forced to sign papers saying they were warned against participating in unsanctioned demonstrations.

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Nuclear arms to be used as soon as NATO attacks Belarus, Lukashenko says

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said during a meeting with students that nuclear weapons will be used as soon as NATO attacks the republic.

“I <…> have been saying that attacking Belarus is World War Three. Actually, recently, Putin confirmed this making amendments to the nuclear doctrine that, in the event of an attack on Russia and Belarus we are using nuclear arms,” the BelTA news agency quoted him as saying. “He confirmed my words. This is the essence of my statement,” the Belarusian leader added.

“If we use nuclear weapons, they may respond. And to Russia as well, so it will use all of its arsenal. And this is a world war already. The West doesn’t want it either. They are not ready for it. Yet we are openly telling them: the state border is the red line. If they set foot on it, the response will be immediate,” Lukashenko asserted.

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What Was A Japanese Spy Doing In Belarus?

Belarusian media reported earlier this month that their security services busted a Japanese spy. He allegedly entered into a fictitious marriage that helped him legalize his stay in the country, after which he set up a business in Gomel to explain his travels, including to the border. He also taught Japanese. The spy allegedly had over 9,000 photos of roads, bridges, and military facilities and was actively in contact with his embassy. These reports raised a lot of eyebrows since few expected Japan to spy on Belarus. 

As it turns out, his home base of Gomel is in Ukraine’s crosshairs as explained last month here, and it’s possible that the security services’ additional scrutiny on all activities there as part of their precautionary measures resulted in them finally catching him. His interrogation also revealed that he was involved in the failed summer 2020 Color Revolution and had been monitoring the socio-economic situation as well, including the availability and prices of goods as well as locals’ reaction to this.

Considering the importance of his activities, especially in the context of the special operation, there’s no way that he’d be allowed to continue operating if anyone had picked up on what he was doing earlier. It’s therefore almost certainly the case that he only came on their radar recently as was speculated above. This means that he was transmitting highly sensitive information during the past two years of the New Cold War’s top proxy war, thus raising the question of why Japan would want to do this in the first place.

What might have been going on is that Japan was passing everything along to its Western partners in the implied hopes of them then supporting it more in its own part of the world. His most recent activities might also have played a role in Ukraine’s recent drone provocations in Belarus. In fact, he might have been pressured by his handlers into taking more risks than usual because the West demanded more information for Ukraine, which could have contributed to him finally getting caught.

This explanation is the most logical since Japan couldn’t act on its own with what that spy hadn’t uncovered this entire time. It was also reported that he was spying on China’s Belt & Road Initiative investments too, of which its primary one in Belarus is the “Great Stone” industrial park, which could have disguised his more nefarious activities had he been caught earlier under different circumstances. It’s much better, after all, to be busted for conducting “business intelligence” than military intelligence.

In retrospect, there’s not much that the security services could have done better to have stopped him ahead of time.

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Ukraine Might Be Gearing Up To Attack Or Cut Off Belarus’ Southeastern City Of Gomel

Its Foreign Ministry’s ominously implied ultimatum to Minsk and reaffirmation of Ukraine’s right to self-defense suggest that Kiev might invade Belarus’ Gomel Region and/or Russia’s Bryansk Region.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry released a statement on Sunday warning about what it described as the “threat” posed by Belarus’ military buildup along the border, the motivations of which were analyzed here in early August. Belarusian President Lukashenko also drew attention last week to the whopping 120,000 Ukrainian troops that he claims were the first to deploy there. For reference, Belarus only has around 65,000 active soldiers, one-third of whom are stationed along the Ukrainian border.

Less than a week ago, a small Ukrainian force unsuccessfully tried to invade a tiny village in Russia’s Bryansk Region that’s only 30 kilometers from the Belarusian border. It was likely a probing attempt in hindsight, but any Kursk-like invasion along that front could risk impeding or even cutting off Russia’s military logistics to Belarus’ southeastern city of Gomel. That’s because there’s a nearby highway running between there and Bryansk’s eponymous capital just 30-50 kilometers inside of Russia from the border.

Ukraine might be gearing up to either attack Gomel (which is just 30 kilometers from the border) or at least threaten Russia’s military logistics to there from Bryansk judging by its Foreign Ministry’s statement, which the “Kyiv Independent” noted was the first about Belarus since last September. They ominously implied an ultimatum by writing that “we urge its armed forces to cease unfriendly actions and withdraw forces away from Ukraine’s state border to a distance greater than the firing range of Belarus’ systems.”

This was backed up by them reminding Belarus that “We warn that in case of a violation of Ukraine’s state border by Belarus, our state will take all necessary measures to exercise the right to self-defense guaranteed by the UN Charter. Consequently, all troop concentrations, military facilities, and supply routes in Belarus will become legitimate targets for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.” The stage is therefore set for opening up another front on this false pretext if Kiev has the political will to do so.

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WWIII: Belarus Masses Troops/Equipment On Ukrainian Border As Russia Strikes Kyiv

Belarus is reportedly gathering a substantial number of troops and military equipment, including tanks, artillery, multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS), and aircraft near its border with Ukraine under the pretext of conducting military drills.

The troop concentration is notably near the city of Gomel, approximately 30 km from the Ukraine-Belarus border, reported Inkerman.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has warned Belarus against making any aggressive moves and emphasised that any violations of Ukraine’s state border would trigger self-defence measures.

A Russian missile strike on a hotel in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, killed Ryan Evans, a 40-year-old British safety adviser for Reuters, on 24 August 2024. Four Reuters journalists were injured in the attack and are currently receiving medical treatment, one with serious injuries.

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Putin Issues Stark Warning To Poland And NATO

Putin held a video conference on Thursday with members of Russia’s Security Council. I hope folks in the West pay attention to what he said, so I’m presenting the entirety of his remarks following a presentation by the Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service.

Based on public source information and Russia-collected intelligence, Russia believes that Poland plans to seize Ukrainian territory west of the Dnieper River as Ukraine’s much-ballyhooed counter-offensive collapses.

Let me give you Putin’s bottom line up front:

Regarding the policy of the Ukrainian regime, it is none of our business. If they want to relinquish or sell off something in order to pay their bosses, as traitors usually do, that’s their business. We will not interfere.

But Belarus is part of the Union State, and launching an aggression against Belarus would mean launching an aggression against the Russian Federation. We will respond to that with all the resources available to us.

Vladimir Putin is not a weak, spineless creature like Barack Obama or Joe Biden. He does not make idle threats and does not succumb to emotion.

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Belarus foreign minister and Putin ally dies ‘after secret talks to end war in Ukraine’

The foreign minister of Belarus has suddenly died today after reportedly holding secret talks to end the war in Ukraine.

Vladimir Makei, 64, was seen as the only main channel of communication to the West in dictator Alexander Lukashenko’s hardline pro-Russia regime.

His death mysteriously came the day after he met with the Pope’s envoy Ante Jozić where they reportedly discussed a secret peace plan to end the war in Ukraine.

Career spy Makei had been foreign minister for a decade and was due to host Vladimir Putin ’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Minsk on Sunday and Monday.

Lavrov’s spokeswoman said Russia was “shocked” at his passing.

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Belarus Claims Alleged Russian War Crimes Were Staged by Britain

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has accused Britain of staging a “psychological operation” in Bucha, Ukraine, where Russia has been accused of committing war crimes after reports and pictures emerged of mass graves of people allegedly killed by Russian forces.

Appearing at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the far Eastern Amur Oblast region of Russia, Lukashenko claimed to have provided his chief ally, Vladimir Putin, with evidence that the events in Bucha were staged by the British.

“Today we’ve discussed this special operation of theirs in detail – a psychological operation staged by Englishmen,” the Belarusian strongman said according to the state news agency Belta.

“Together with our Russian friends we have gotten to the bottom of this nasty and disgusting position of the West from the first hour to the last one,” he added.

Lukashenko did not offer up any evidence of the claim that Bucha was staged by the UK, but said that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) could provide “addresses, passwords, places of secret meetings, plate numbers and brands of the vehicles those people used to come to Bucha and how they did it.”

Vladimir Putin, for his part, also claimed that Bucha was staged, claiming that it was a “false flag”, comparing it to chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

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