MINSK, 4 December (BelTA) – New flights and train service routes will be launched to connect Belarus and Russia. Head of the Belarus President Administration Dmitry Krutoi mentioned it at a session of the high-level group of the Council of Ministers of the Union State of Belarus and Russia, BelTA has learned.
Dmitry Krutoi said: “We intend to continue expanding communication by air between our countries, including between the oblast capitals of Belarus and regions of the Russian Federation. We hope that new flights will be opened soon from Minsk to Krasnodar, Vladikavkaz, Volgograd, Omsk, Tyumen, and Rostov-on-Don. I am naming the cities, on which active work is in progress right now.”
An additional couple of Lastochka [swallow] trains will shuttle between Moscow and Minsk every day as from 15 December. “We are grateful to the Russian side for launching the third pair of Lastochka trains as from 15 December. These will operate on a daily basis. Now they are available only on holidays and weekends. And the number of train cars will grow from 5 to 10 or twice as many. It will allow transporting 30,000 more passengers per month,” the head of the Belarus President Administration noted.
“We don’t leave transboundary passenger transportation by rail unattended. It is necessary to promptly enable direct trains between Vitebsk and Smolensk and between Orsha and Smolensk as from January 2026. The trains were promised a long time ago. Our citizens will greatly appreciate it,” Dmitry Krutoi stressed.
The Belarusian side expects the transport authorities to sign in the near future the roadmap on building a high-speed railway line between Moscow and Minsk. “I am convinced that the significance of this project on our agenda will be comparable to the construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant in Ostrovets,” the official noted.
Enabling the transportation of Belarusian exports via Russian ports remains the key avenue of cooperation in transport industry. “In January-October 2025 the outbound shipment of Belarusian goods by rail alone via Russian ports increased by 3.7% to 13.5 million tonnes. We expect the figure to reach 16 million tonnes this year. Three years ago we began with virtually zero. And it is another vivid example of our joint successful work to substitute the appropriate infrastructure of Western countries and a response to the sanctions enforced against transit and logistics,” Dmitry Krutoi noted.
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