Belarus Threatens to Return Military Drills to EU Borders

Belarus has announced that it does not rule out a partial change in the location of the 'Zapad (West) 2025' military exercises, which it had promised to move deeper into the country, blaming Poland and Lithuania for their allegedly aggressive behaviour.

The Gaze writes about this, referring to the press service of the Belarusian Ministry of Defence on social media.

First Deputy Minister of Defence of Belarus Pavel Muraveiko said that the decision on the location of the Zapad 2025 military exercises may be changed.  

‘Given the complex military-political situation and the fact that Belarus is constantly accused of aggressive intentions, we have made a decision and moved the areas of the exercises away from the borders. I would like to note that this process should not be interpreted as a sign of weakness on our part... But our Western colleagues have begun to speculate on this process,’ he said. 

"Poland has announced that it is ready to conduct division-scale exercises near our borders in the vicinity of Grodno and Belovezhskaya Pushcha. Lithuania is transferring the Iron Wolf brigade to the Pabrade training ground and plans to conduct manoeuvres there, 15 km from our borders. Under these conditions, we reserve the right to make a decision and move our separate units during the exercises in order to work out episodes of an exclusively defensive nature, in particular in the directions I have indicated," the major general added. 

The Russian-Belarusian manoeuvres ‘Zapad-2025’ are planned for September. 

In June, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, commenting on Zapad 2025, noted that the Russian Federation's best units were ‘bogged down in Ukraine.’

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda noted that this year's Zapad exercises will be 2-3 times smaller in scale than in 2021, before the Russian Federation's full-scale attack on Ukraine. 

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte does not consider a Russian attack on the Alliance after the Zapad 2025 military exercises in Belarus to be a realistic scenario.