A battle rages 45 miles from Minsk, with bombers, artillery, helicopters, and drones filling the sky with explosions and smoke. As international media and military attachés looked on, the joint Belarusian-Russian exercises at the Borisovsky training ground formed a key part of the quadrennial Zapad-2025 drills.
Moscow and Minsk say the exercises are defensive, aimed at strengthening security and countering external threats, though similar claims were made in 2022—the year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—when 200,000 troops participated.
During the “West 2025” drills in Belarus, representatives from 23 countries, including the U.S., Turkey, and Hungary, observed joint Belarusian-Russian exercises. Belarus insists the drills are transparent and non-threatening, but tensions remain high, especially with Poland, which called the exercises “very aggressive” and closed its border.
The exercises occur amid ongoing Russian aggression in Ukraine and recent drone incursions into Polish and Romanian airspace, raising European security concerns.
While Minsk frames the drills as transparent, the show of force may also serve as a warning to Europe about Moscow’s military capabilities. Previously Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko dismissed as “complete nonsense” suggestions the drills could be used to prepare an attack on Poland or its Baltic neighbours—albeit without specifically mentioning Romania.
