Defense: New joint military exercises between Russia and Belarus worry NATO

They are taking place from Friday to Tuesday near a town east of Minsk, the capital, according to Belarusian authorities.

NATO member countries Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia, neighbors of Belarus, are critical of the exercise being held so close to their borders. All three have tightened security and restricted air traffic in certain areas, with Warsaw also ordering the complete closure of its border with Belarus during the exercises.

Moscow on Thursday called on Warsaw to "reconsider the decision taken (to close the border) as soon as possible," denouncing "confrontational measures" and a "policy of escalating tensions."

The intrusion of around twenty drones into Polish airspace on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, deemed deliberate by Warsaw and its allies but denied by Moscow, sparked strong emotion in Poland and was described as a provocation by Western countries. Warsaw had to mobilize its planes and those of its NATO allies to shoot down the drones, which came from the skies over Ukraine and Belarus.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the situation was closer to "open conflict" than it had been since World War II. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the goal of the Russian-Belarusian maneuvers was "certainly not defensive." And they were "not only aimed at Ukraine," he said.

Russia has dismissed concerns about the military exercises, dubbed Zapad-2025 ("West-2025," referring to the fact that they are taking place in the western part of the Russian-Belarusian alliance). Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said they were "planned exercises, they are not aimed at anyone."

Zapad exercises are usually held every four years. The 2025 edition is the first since the conflict in Ukraine began in February 2022. The 2021 exercise mobilized around 200,000 Russian troops, a few months before the launch of their assault. This time, the scale of the exercises is expected to be much smaller, with hundreds of thousands of Russian troops deployed in Ukraine. Belarus had stated in January that 13,000 troops would participate in the exercises, but indicated in May that this number would be halved.

According to Donald Tusk, the maneuvers are aimed at simulating the occupation of the Suwalki Corridor, which runs along the border between Poland and Lithuania, with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad to the west and Belarus to the east. This corridor is often considered a NATO weak point that could be the first target of a hypothetical Russian attack.

This fear is "complete nonsense," Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko dismissed. His country is trying to reconcile its close proximity to Russia, on which it is highly dependent, with a desire to improve its image among Western countries. The Belarusian defense minister recently told state media that the Zapad exercises had been moved away from the borders of Poland and Ukraine to "reduce tensions."

Minsk, however, said in August that the maneuvers would involve Russia's nuclear-capable Oreshnik hypersonic missiles, which are to be deployed in Belarus.

Moscow-based military analyst Alexander Khramchikhin called the Zapad exercises "a mere show" with no real significance. But Vasily Kashin, an analyst at the Kremlin-linked Russian Council on International Affairs, said the exercises were "both a demonstration and real combat training." "We must be ready to defend Belarus if necessary," he said.