You're Messing Around, Kid.
- 3.10.2026, 13:44
- 1,470
What do “Amkodor,” Lukashenko, and the man-eating Ellochka have in common?
Last Friday, September 25, Alexander Lukashenko visited the “Amkodor-Lesmash” plant in the Logoisk District. The company specializes in the production of logging equipment. The state news agency BelTA covered Lukashenko’s visit in a lengthy article titled “Lukashenko’s Bet on Forestry Paid Off: How Belarus Developed a New Industry Despite Sanctions.”
“AMKODOR-LESMASH has managed to occupy a highly specialized niche. The Belarusian manufacturer faces competition from such industrial giants as the American company John Deere, the Finnish company Ponsse, and the Japanese company Komatsu,” the BelTA article stated.
When someone starts competing with global giants, one colorful literary character immediately comes to mind. For “Amkodor,” the competition with industrial giants ended much like the rivalry between Ellochka the Cannibal and the millionaire Vanderbilt did.
That is, in financial ruin.
Because as long as “Amkodor” hadn’t started competing, everything was going well for it. A successful conglomerate that occupied its own unique niche, selling machines to forty countries around the world.
But Lukashenko constantly demanded that “Amkodor”—which was, in fact, a private company—ensure complete import substitution for him. So that everything would be domestically produced, and nothing would have to be bought from those Western imperialists. And the former owner, Shakutin, couldn’t refuse him.
“If we boast that we’re a smart engineering nation, we have to do this. No matter what the cost,” Lukashenko said.
Lukashenko boasted, but others had to foot the bill. As a result, the plant mastered the production of 125 new models, unveiling 10–15 new ones each year. However, this did not benefit the plant.
The plant produced some models literally one at a time, never managing to establish mass production for them. For example, they made huge investments in the development of bulldozers and heavy rollers, but lost out to Chinese manufacturers on the Russian market by a landslide.
Other models, such as a chipper for grinding logging waste into wood chips or a rock-clearing machine, were too highly specialized to be put into mass production in the first place.
Only truly global industrial giants can afford to mass-produce such machines. And Amkodor simply has no one to sell these machines to. There is no demand for them in commercial quantities in Belarus, and other markets are already occupied.
And if you produce a machine one at a time, it’s no surprise that it ends up costing a fortune. Because not only do you invest a lot of money in development, but you also have to assemble the machine practically by hand. “Amkodor” simply didn’t have that kind of money.
Therefore, in order to satisfy Lukashenko’s whims, the company had to take on more and more debt. As of early 2025, Amkodor’s debts totaled $300 million. The company was unable to repay its debts. Consequently, in 2025, Lukashenko nationalized it. The state took on the responsibility of paying off the company’s debts.
So the BelTA news agency didn’t even lie. Amkodor really does compete with global industrial giants. No one is saying, however, that this competition is successful for Amkodor.
Now, though, the authorities have drawn some conclusions. Amkodor’s new director said that the company is changing its strategy. It will no longer endlessly expand its product line but will focus on mass production of the most profitable types of equipment.
In other words, it took driving a once-successful conglomerate to the brink of bankruptcy to realize that your import-substitution strategies aren’t working.
Felix Mirsky, “Belarusians and the Market”
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