Context: On April 3, 2026, YouTube removed the BelTA news agency, CTV, and the ONT TV channel accounts from its platform. The reason was not specified. In response, Belarusian state media labeled this action a new phase in the information war against Belarus and called for YouTube to be blocked in the country. Two days earlier, on April 1, Aleksandr Lukashenko discussed the potential of the armed forces in a real war with the military. He held a meeting to summarize the results of the wide-ranging check that had been underway since January. The politician admitted that he was dissatisfied with the results, but he didn’t want to reveal to his enemies “all the ugliness” in the army. He demanded that people be taught how to fight so they can survive a war.
On April 2, 2026, when discussing Lukashenko’s meeting regarding the results of the armed forces check, Nikolai Buzin, a colonel and deputy of the House of Representatives, appeared on Radio Minsk to talk about what the state had provided to the army:
“These are relevant developments of the MIC. Thank God we don’t have the worst ones.”
“Even the first-aid kits are modern and just as good as NATO’s, right?” the presenter, Andrey Krivosheev, supported the colonel.
“I’ll tell you more: they’re better than the NATO ones. Our Russian colleagues have added it to their arming purposes after seeing how far we have advanced in this matter and how thoroughly we have thought it through,” Buzin summarized.
He is referring to a first-aid kit developed in Belarus in 2022. Back then, Aleksandr Lukashenko also spoke about it. According to Lukashenko, his younger son, Nikolai, showed him a NATO first-aid kit. The Belarusian kit was significantly inferior, and a few months later, Belarus designed a new version that Lukashenko claimed was better than the NATO one.
A batch of these first-aid kits was indeed handed over to the Russian military in 2023. However, the transfer alone does not necessarily indicate that the first-aid kit has been adopted.
The Belarusian first-aid kit contains approximately two dozen medical supplies. These are mainly for the emergency treatment of wounds and injuries. However, the kit also includes general-purpose products, such as antibiotics, antiseptics, and analgesics. Therefore, it can be described as more enhanced and versatile.
At the end of 2022, Russia also revised the content of its military first-aid kits. They began equipping the military with the Individual First-Aid Kit 7, also known as the APPI-7, as early as 2023. The kit’s contents are noticeably more modest, with only 10 items. The main emphasis is on administering first aid after an injury and stopping the bleeding. The first-aid kit is lighter and smaller than the Belarusian one.
Beginning in 2024, Series 8 first-aid kits were deployed to war zones. The kits were expanded to include 17 items. However, even this version still does not include the medications provided in the Belarusian first-aid kit. At the same time, the Russian approach includes items absent from the Belarusian version, such as chemical protection equipment and a flashlight.
There is another difference as well. The Belarusian first-aid kit was designed to be as universal as possible, suitable for all cases. By contrast, Russia is moving toward dividing the first-aid kit into multiple echelons to avoid overloading one kit. One version is designed to be as compact as possible for emergency self-help purposes. The other is created to be more expansive. This is the logic behind Kalashnikov Concern’s development of first-aid kits, for example. The company has the ability to test the kits in real-world combat situations and incorporate feedback from military personnel and doctors.
Thus, on Radio Minsk, the transfer of a batch of Belarusian first-aid kits to the Russian military was presented as their adoption for arming purposes. In fact, Russia has its own first-aid kits that differ from the Belarusian ones in both composition and logic of use.
