Russia and Belarus Conduct Military Exercises Amid Rising Regional Tensions + Video
Rokna Political Desk: Belarus – Russian and Belarusian forces have launched joint military drills amid heightened regional tensions, marking the first such exercises since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The maneuvers, known as Zapad-2025, are taking place at the Borisov military training grounds in Belarus.
According to Rokna, during the exercises, the allied forces simulated defensive operations against a hypothetical Western invasion, effectively representing NATO. Fighter jets roared overhead, tanks fired on mock wooden structures, and drones targeted strategic points before troops stormed a mock village, raising the Russian and Belarusian flags over a “liberated” area.
The drills occur against a backdrop of rising tensions in Eastern Europe, following multiple Russian drone incursions into Polish airspace, with some drones passing over Belarus, and a separate Russian drone entering Romanian airspace, tracked by Romanian forces for nearly an hour.
Zapad-2025 is significantly smaller than the 2021 exercises, which involved roughly 200,000 personnel. This year, only a few thousand Russian troops are participating alongside Belarusian forces, reflecting Moscow’s limited available manpower due to its ongoing military engagement in Ukraine. Nevertheless, Western capitals are closely monitoring the exercises, recalling that Zapad-2021 enabled Vladimir Putin to redeploy substantial military resources westward months before the invasion of Ukraine.
For Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, the drills come at a sensitive moment. Traditionally balancing between Moscow and the West, Lukashenko has recently reached out to the Trump administration, securing limited US sanctions relief last week following the release of over 50 prisoners, including a British-Belarusian woman.
Lukashenko has sought to downplay the significance of Zapad-2025, emphasizing that the drills are purely defensive and held deep within Belarus, far from NATO borders where Poland has stationed troops and Western aircraft patrol the skies after recent Russian drone activity.
Nonetheless, tensions with Warsaw have escalated after Poland closed a major border crossing with Belarus last week, following the drone incidents. This move delivered a significant economic setback for Lukashenko, who relies on the route for the transit of predominantly Chinese goods.
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