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Fleets of unusual vehicles have been spotted in Minsk in recent days that may be linked to a murky trade deal with Indonesia.

Trucks with a military color scheme and nearly identical to the Belarus-made MAZ-5316 have been seen sporting the logo "HAL" in place of the usual MAZ badge.

The MAZ-5316 is a heavy-duty 4WD truck produced since the early 2000s by the Minsk Automobile Plant. The vehicles are used for civilian and military purposes, including as troop carriers.

Sightings of HAL-branded vehicles first emerged this summer, when dozens of trucks covered with concealing material were spotted in Indonesia. Reports from the Asian country claimed the partially concealed vehicles were part of an order of some 1,500 Belarusian trucks for Indonesia's Defense Ministry.

In May, an Indonesian delegation toured Belarus's MAZ plant as part of a trip to "explore the company's export potential." In July, Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko visited Indonesia to meet with the country's president, Prabowo Subianto.

Belarus declared the primary purpose of the July trip to be "issues of bilateral military-technical cooperation" and "the deepening of industrial cooperation between Minsk and Jakarta."

So what is HAL, and why would Belarusian trucks sport the unfamiliar logo?

Belarusian truck manufacturer MAZ is under EU and US sanctions, a status that blocks many countries from dealing with the company. Indonesia has not imposed sanctions against Belarus but faces the risk of secondary penalties for dealing with entities on Western blacklists.

An Indonesian company called PT HAL Teknologi functions as a distributor for supplies of specialized equipment for defense agencies and other entities in the country, but it is unclear if the company has been involved in vehicle imports from Belarus.

Uladzimer Zhyhar from BelPol, an organization of former Belarusian security officials, told RFE/RL's Belarus Service there is a history of sanctioned Belarusian businesses creating new branding to minimize the risk that purchasing countries will be stung for dealing with sanctioned entities.

"Previously, they tried to organize something similar with [Belarusian heavy transport equipment company] BelAZ deliveries to Poland. They sold entire dump truck assemblies without labels, without the country of origin. And then it was all pieced together [in Poland], but the dump trucks were branded as something else," Zhyhar said.

He added that for some militaries, the kinds of hardware produced in Belarus is desirable enough that risky, complex import schemes are deemed worthwhile.

Factories such as MAZ, Zhyhar said, "generally produce a product that, I would say, belongs to previous generations. But this is exactly what some countries need, because the types of weapons that they have require exactly the older, 'quasi-Soviet' models," he said.

In some cases, Zhyhar said, products from sanctioned Belarusian companies have been paid for through bartering to avoid financial services that are closely watched by regulators.

Belarusian state-linked brands order commodities up to the value of the products being exported, resulting in "goods, not money going to Belarus," Zhyhar said.

The National Statistics Committee of Belarus has not published detailed data on foreign trade since 2021, but in 2020 Indonesia purchased 8 unidentified trucks from Belarus at a cost of $56,138 per vehicle.

Recent reports from the Indonesian Statistics Service do not include information on truck deliveries from Belarus, though there is data on small deliveries of parts including brake systems and clutches.

The Minsk Automobile Plant did not response to a query from RFE/RL's Belarus Service on whether MAZ was involved the production of trucks with the HAL logo.

Amos Chapple contributed to this report.

As the world's militaries race to counter the threat of fiberoptic drones, a cable-cutting barrier has just been deployed onto Ukraine's battlefields, according to the maker behind the fledgling technology.

Ukraine's Chaharnyk (Shrub) was announced in September as an active defense measure designed to physically break fiberoptic cables drone pilots use to control many first-person-view (FPV) quadcopters.

The drones, which are immune to electronic jamming devices, have also emerged in recent weeks in conflicts in Myanmar and been used with deadly effect against Israeli forces, sparking a massive push in the Middle Eastern country to find a defense against the weapon.

The director of Logika Design Bureau, the Ukrainian company behind Chaharnyk, told RFE/RL that "dozens" of the systems have been delivered to frontline Ukrainian units in recent days.

The technologist, who declined to be named for security reasons, added that it is "still too early to discuss official feedback or statistics" from the battlefield.

Chaharnyk resembles a fence for livestock, but the 80-centimeter-high barrier visibly comes to life when its acoustic sensor detects a drone nearby: Electric motors pull wires studded with hooks resembling razor wire through a "break zone," of which exact details have not been disclosed. The cutter then severs the physical communication link between the drone and its pilot.

James Patton Rogers, co-director of the Future Threat Lab at London's King's College, likened the Chaharnyk to "smart barbed wire." He predicts the barrier will face significant issues in an active war zone, including the device's own vulnerability to attack. Additionally, he says, "depending where it is placed, it could be an obstacle to Ukrainian maneuver."

But he told RFE/RL, "if placed along the front or around civilian villages and key military sites, alongside other counter drone tech, it could provide vital defense against a threat that has yet to be thwarted."

In demonstrations, fiberoptic cables trailed by FPV attack drones have been snagged on the hooks of the Chaharnyk then pulled through the cutter that Logika claims severs the cables "95 percent" of the time.

The head of Ukraine's Logika technology company told RFE/RL that many Russian FPV drones controlled through fiberoptic cables are equipped with a backup radio connection that takes over if the cable is cut.

"In that case, electronic warfare systems deployed in the area come into play," he says, and "in most cases, the drone crashes and explodes."

A recent Chinese report on counter-drone technologies analyzed a rudimentary barrier similar in principal to the Chaharnyk that was filmed in operation in Ukraine in late 2025.

That makeshift barrier had "clear" limitations, the Chinese assessment noted. "The [drone] pilot can fly around it; severing the fiber does not eliminate all damage because momentum may still carry the drone into a target; and the barrier itself reveals the defender's operating area."

"Could the enemy spot Chaharnyk and fly around it? Yes, that is possible," the head of Logika told RFE/RL. "However, if a network of Chaharnyk systems is deployed correctly, taking into account the site or area that needs protection, there will be no way to fly around it." The comments indicate small frontline Ukrainian positions that are routinely subject to FPV drone attacks may be an early priority for emplacement of the technology.

The Logika head added that the system can be camouflaged and the low-resolution video feeds used by drone pilots mean such a device could be hard to identify from a distance.

"We're not claiming that Chaharnyk will keep everyone safe, but we are confident that it will improve protection against fiberoptic FPV drone attacks," he added.