Dmitry Lukashenko designed merchandise for Belarusian universities
In 2017 and 2018, three higher education institutions in Belarus launched their own branded merch lines featuring their official logos, including clothing and souvenirs. Student stores on college campuses were the sites of sales.
The Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics (BSUIR) was the first to adopt the practice.
Source: @bsuir_studentstore Instagram account
The Belarusian State Medical University (BSMU) and the Belarusian National Technical University (BNTU) followed soon after.
Source: @bsmu_studentstore Instagram account
Source: @bntu_studentstore Instagram account
According to a statement from the BSUIR press office, “the idea of creating such a sales point was proposed by the company Universitetskie Traditsii, which, in turn, drew inspiration from the experience of European universities.”
DUBIOUS PARTNERS
Buro discovered that, when the merchandise stands were open, Universitetskie Traditsii had three owners. The first owner is the Presidential Sports Club (PSC), led by Dmitry Lukashenko for over twenty years.
The second is Soyuztrade. Its main business is the wholesale trade of “other household goods.” However, we have determined that the company is a Yandex.Taxi partner. It has its own fleet of vehicles and is involved in recruiting and hiring drivers. The company was founded by Yauheni Kukushkin. After reviewing his biography, Buro can confirm that Soyuztrade, like Kukushkin himself, is linked to Dmitry Lukashenko.
Yauheni Kukushkin is a graduate of the Yunost Specialized Children and Youth Sports School of the Olympic Reserve, one of Belarus’s most successful hockey academies. The academy has produced numerous star players who have gone on to compete for national teams and in the NHL and KHL. He even tried to pursue a professional hockey career in the early ‘90s, but later went into government service.
Thanks to the Belarusian Investigators’ Alliance, we learned that Yauheni Kukushkin served as an inspector on the Securities Committee under the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus in the early 2000s. In 2002, however, he was detained by KGB agents for attempting to sell a state military secret about the activities of the defense contractor Peleng to “Russian businessmen.” Kukushkin planned to make $4,300 on the deal.
According to media reports, Kukushkin was sentenced to five years in prison for receiving illegal compensation as a government official, as defined by Article 433 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus. However, Buro discovered that the former official did not go to prison, but rather received a five-year suspended sentence. After his probation period ended in 2004, his suspended sentence was revoked.
Following the scandal surrounding his criminal case, Yauheni Kukushkin returned to sports. In the early 2010s, he played as a defenseman for the amateur hockey team Rubezh. Publicly available sources do not indicate that he held any administrative position at the club. However, we have determined that the legal entity behind Rubezh is linked to Kukushkin’s phone number.
Meanwhile, he also worked to promote women’s hockey in Belarus, serving as CEO of Pantera, then the country’s only women’s hockey club. The team existed from 2010 to 2013, but it was disbanded due to a lack of funding.
Yauheni Kukushkin has served as chairman of the board for the amateur hockey team Shchit for at least the past four years. In 2025, he was also employed by Shchit as a coach on a 0.25 full-time equivalent basis, with a monthly salary of 1,860.6 Belarusian rubles. His university merchandise sales partner, Dmitry Lukashenko, plays on this very team. The legal entity running Shchit is registered at the office next to Universitetskie Traditsii in the BNTU dormitory at 63 Nezalezhnastsi Avenue.
The third company to own Universitetskie Traditsii was ZAO Oblrapsagroservis. This entity produces vegetable oils and oilseed meal. The ownership structure of a closed joint-stock company does not require disclosure of the ultimate beneficial owners. However, Oblrapsagroservis is associated with the email address [email protected]. Several legal entities associated with Yauheni Kukushkin and Dmitry Lukashenko were registered at this address: Universitetskie Traditsii, Lubitelsky Klub Shchit, and Sport-System. Sport-System held a stake in Universitetskie Traditsii before Oblarapsagroservis. From 2011 to 2023, the Sport-System company was owned by the Rubezh and Shchit hockey clubs, which are linked to Kukushkin and Lukashenko.
Thus, the three owners responsible for producing and selling merchandise from Belarusian universities are all directly or indirectly linked to Aleksandr Lukashenko’s middle son.
A FAILED PROJECT
Buro examined Universitetskie Traditsii’s financial statements to assess the profitability of dressing Belarusian students in merchandise from their alma mater. Unfortunately, the editorial staff does not have any documentation from the time the stores opened. However, the financial data from 2023 onward is quite revealing.
In 2023, Universitetskie Traditsii reported revenues of 52,000 Belarusian rubles and a net profit of only 2,000 Belarusian rubles.
The company’s financial situation deteriorated significantly in the years that followed. By 2024, the company had generated 10,000 rubles in revenue but posted a loss of 5,000 Belarusian rubles.
Universitetskie Traditsii ended 2025 with revenue of 6,000 rubles and a net profit of 3,000 rubles.
It seems the owners realized that the business idea had failed even earlier. The shops’ Instagram accounts have not been updated since 2022. In February 2024, Universitetskie Traditsii closed all its brick-and-mortar locations and started offering the option to shop without visiting a physical store. Now, orders are placed via private messages on social media.