Brest Region

Brest Region occupies Belarus's edge effect zone—the territory where Soviet and European economic systems meet. In 1996, Belarus established its first Free Economic Zone here, creating a 50 km² territory with tax holidays and customs preferences specifically to exploit this boundary position. The region sits at the confluence of two massive economic blocs: the Eurasian Economic Union to the east, the European Union to the west.

The geographic logic is path-dependent: Brest has been a gateway since the 1795 partitions of Poland placed it on empire's edge. The Euroregion Bug transboundary union (since 1988) links Brest with Poland's Lublin Voivodeship and Ukraine's Volyn region—cooperation that predates the current geopolitical freeze. The region receives 13.6% of national fixed capital investment (January-May 2024), third among oblasts, concentrated in engineering, wood processing, and food production.

But edge effects cut both ways. Poland's border closures threaten the cross-border trade that Brest was positioned to capture. The same geographic advantage that made Brest valuable for East-West commerce now makes it vulnerable to East-West conflict. The Free Economic Zone attracted investors from twenty countries; Western sanctions have severed most of those connections. Brest demonstrates how boundary advantages depend on the permeability of boundaries.