International cooperation and the demand for Belarusian manufacturing were discussed on the show “Current Microphone” on the First National Channel of Belarusian Radio on May 28, 2025. BSTU professor Irina Novikova explained why MAZ built a new production facility:
Take our MAZ, for example. They’re expanding—practically building another MAZ from the ground up. Why? Because our buses are in high demand in Russia. It’s clear why—Russia has far more cities than we do and a population of over 160 million. So they need buses, but we don’t have enough capacity to keep up.
In the spring of 2025, MAZ did in fact launch a new bus production facility. It was built to bring the entire manufacturing process under one roof, increase output and create new jobs. It worked: Production capacity doubled to 3,000 buses a year. The WTF team set out to find out whether there’s real demand for that level of output.
In the past decade, MAZ’s bus sales to Russia have never come close to the company’s previous production limits. In the record year of 2022, the company sold 1,065 buses to Russia; in 2023, it was 925, and last year just 504. In the first four months of 2025, Russia bought 74 Belarusian buses.