Russia and Belarus plan joint military manoeuvres

Russia and Belarus are preparing a large new military manoeuvre together, the Belarusian state agency BelTA reported on Friday.

“We plan to jointly develop measures to counter aggression against the Union State,” Russian Defence Minister Andrey Belousov said during a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart Viktor Khrenin in Minsk, according to BelTA. The Union State combines Russia and Belarus.

The exercise, dubbed Zapad-2025, or West-2025 in English, will be the main event of the combat training of the regional troop formations, he said. The manoeuvre is planned for mid-September, according to the agency.

Belarus has numerous manoeuvres planned this year, including joint ones with its ally Russia.

The holding of exercises was decided at the presidential level, BelTA cited Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko as saying, also during a meeting with Belousov. “We do not intend to attack anyone, as some think,” he said, likely directed at the West.

At the Munich Security Conference in February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky cited intelligence sources as saying that the Kremlin was planning to move troops to Belarus. The deployment would be disguised as a joint military manoeuvre, he said.

Minsk and Moscow are close allies. Lukashenko allowed Russian troops to attack Ukraine from his country when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of the neighbouring country.

The deployment of Russian troops around Ukraine, including on Belarusian territory, was then declared a military exercise. Later, Putin stationed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

In the past, Russia and Belarus have conducted military exercises under the name Zapad. During the large manoeuvre in 2021, up to 200,000 people and hundreds of units of combat equipment were involved, according to Russian information at the time.

NATO criticized the military exercise.