Белшина: История, Производство и Санкции

Belarusian tyre manufacturer

Belshina (, Lang ru) is a tyre manufacturer in Belarus. The name is an abbreviation for "Belaruskaya shina", or "Belarusian Tyre". The Belarusian tyre works is located in the Belarusian industrial city Babruysk. Belshina produces over 180 tyre sizes for cars, trucks, mining trucks, road construction machinery, electrical vehicles, tractors and agricultural machinery. Over 90 per cent of tyres are radial. All types of products (pneumatic tyres) are protected by patents by two parameters: design and appearance. Belshina cooperate with partners from 36 countries. Belshina is a main sponsor of football team Belshina Bobruisk which plays in Belarusian Premier League.

In 2020, several hundreds workers of Belshina have joined mass nationwide protests against the authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko after a rigged presidential election. A strike with political demands was declared but never started as Belshina's management executed pressure on the company's workers. Several striking workers were fired.

In 2011, following the violent crackdown of opposition protests after the falsified 2010 Belarusian presidential election, the United States has imposed sanctions against several Belarusian state owned companies, including Belshina. U. S. citizens were prohibited from doing business with several companies of the Belneftekhim conglomerate: Naftan oil refinery, Grodno Azot fertilizer manufacturer, Grodno Khimvolokno fiber manufacturer and Belshina tire factory. The sanctions against Belshina and other Belneftekhim companies were temporarily suspended in 2015. In April 2021, full scale sanctions against Belshina were renewed following brutal political repressions against the opposition after another rigged presidential election that took place in August 2020 and was accompanied by mass protests across Belarus. On 9 August 2021, the US has added Belshina CEO Andrei Bunakov to the SDN list. On 2 December 2021, Belshina was added to the sanctions list of the European Union. Switzerland joined the EU sanctions on 20 December. In 2022, Japan and Ukraine also imposed sanctions on Belshina. In March 2024, the General Court of the European Union granted Belshina's annulment application from the EU sanctions list. According to the court, Belshina was loss making by the time the EU sanctions were imposed, and thus not a “substantial source of income” for the Lukashenko regime, while the European Council failed to show that dismissal of the Belshyna employees was for political reasons (officially, the participants of the strike were fired for being absent from work).