According to a closed working report by the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Belarus prepared for the Council of Ministers, Minsk and Moscow have reached the final stage of agreeing a framework medium-term plan — the “Main Directions for Implementing the Provisions of the Treaty on the Creation of the Union State” for 2027–2029. The final stage is likely to be difficult and will clearly demonstrate the limits of integration rapprochement.
1. Document Context: Three Problematic Items out of 110
Specifically, this concerns an internal working note of the Belarusian Ministry of Economy dated 10 August this year, which came into BELPOL’s possession and was signed off by Deputy Economy Minister A. Abramenka.
According to the document, the sides record consensus on 107 of the 110 planned areas of “rapprochement”.
Despite the document’s high degree of formal readiness — more than 97 per cent of the items have been agreed — the remaining three disagreements are deeply structural. The key regulatory deadlock is concentrated in the energy sector, once again confirming the cyclical nature of Union State integration: a high degree of readiness to harmonise secondary and infrastructure sectors, combined with strong resistance when it comes to sharing energy rents.
2. Areas of Consensus: Defence Industry, Manufacturing and the “Peaceful Atom”
Analysis of the agreed items — 107 out of 110 — shows a pragmatic drift towards sectoral coordination driven by external sanctions constraints and shared defence challenges.
Military-technical and logistical integration: the sides have agreed to sign in 2027 a comprehensive agreement “on logistical and medical support for military contingents”. This establishes a legal basis for permanent or operational logistical support for troops on each other’s territory.
Import substitution and mechanical engineering: joint projects involving the Belarusian State Military-Industrial Committee and Ministry of Industry have been specified, including ABS/EBS braking systems, CNC machine tools, aircraft-manufacturing components and robotics. This points to a shift from declarative import substitution towards the tighter integration of Belarusian industrial capacity into Russia’s state defence procurement system.
Nuclear energy: the document records full alignment with Rosatom on the construction of a third power unit at the Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant and on nuclear-waste disposal. This step strategically deepens Minsk’s technological dependence on Russian nuclear cycles while at the same time reducing Belarus’s domestic need for natural gas in electricity generation — although in practice such a reduction is not occurring, despite Minsk’s repeated claims to that effect.
3. Architecture of the Integration Conflict: The Energy Knot
The three remaining unagreed items are divided into technical and fundamental issues.
The technical, or “dormant”, disagreements concern linking departmental digital platforms for trade purposes and the administration of double taxation for self-employed persons. On these issues, the Belarusian side is taking a wait-and-see approach.
The main strategic dividing line is the wording of the principles governing a common hydrocarbons market. Comparing the sides’ positions reveals fundamentally different approaches.
The Russian proposal, reduced to five words — “developing cooperation in the oil and gas sector” — strips out the substance of Minsk’s long-standing demands for equal business conditions. Russia’s refusal to formalise binding commitments on natural-monopoly tariffs, above all Gazprom’s gas-transport tariffs, leaves Minsk vulnerable to the volatility of intergovernmental agreements.
4. Compromise as the Traditional Way Out
Energy asymmetry remains a fundamental constant in Belarus-Russia relations.
Moscow deliberately compromises in the defence industry and technological substitution, where it critically needs Belarusian production capacity. The Kremlin, however, firmly blocks Minsk’s attempts to secure legally guaranteed equal access to Russian infrastructure and natural resources, seeking to preserve its status as the monopoly arbiter.
Minsk traditionally tries to move what the Kremlin regards as a “purely economic” dispute into the sphere of high-level political decisions. Belarusian sectoral agencies — the Ministry of Energy and Belneftekhim — have good reason to be wary of signing another integration document without firm guarantees, because this would deprive them of legal leverage in future annual disputes over gas prices and the scale of subsidies for oil refining.
The 2027–2029 document will most likely be signed with a compromise, intermediate formulation on energy. Russia will retain the right to manage prices manually through discounts and inter-budgetary transfers, while Belarus will continue to exchange deeper military-political integration for situational economic preferences without achieving institutional equality between the markets.
We are pleased to share this selected analysis from BIT, a weekly analytical monitoring and early-warning bulletin on developments in Belarus, with the permission of the editorial team. The article above was originally published in BIT's Political Commentary section, which offers a concise interpretation of the week’s main political trend.
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