Russia and Belarus have begun major joint military drills on Nato’s eastern borders, sparking fresh security concerns just days after Poland shot down Russian attack drones that entered its airspace.
The manoeuvres, known as the “Zapad 2025” drills, began on Friday and will last until Tuesday, taking place close to Nato members’ Poland, Lithuania and Latvia’s borders.
Russian officials said the exercises are “the final stage of this year’s joint training between the two countries’ armies” and said troops will practice actions “at firing ranges in the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation and in the Baltic Sea and the Barents Sea”.
According to a statement on Russia’s Tass news service, the war games will simulate how the military would respond to “localised aggression” against Russia and Belarus.
Russian officials said the drills were planned before the provocation caused by the drones entering Polish airspace.
“On Friday, Russian-Belarusian manoeuvres, very aggressive from a military doctrine perspective, begin in Belarus, very close to the Polish border,” Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, told a government meeting, Reuters reports.
“Therefore, for national security reasons, we will close the border with Belarus, including railway crossings, in connection with the Zapad manoeuvres on Thursday at midnight.”
Interior minister Marcin Kierwinski said the border would only be reopened when the government was certain “there was no more threat to Polish citizens”.
After three-and-a-half years of war with Ukraine, and over 1 million casualties, the manoeuvres appear designed to demonstrate that the Russian military is still a major fighting force.
The escalation, close to Poland’s borders, has put Nato’s eastern flank on high alert, with Mr Tusk already warning that the country is closer to conflict than at any point since the Second World War.
Warsaw said it was deploying 40,000 troops along its borders with Belarus and Russia.
Mr Kierwinski said that the drills were directly aimed at Poland and the European Union. His remarks come after Mr Tusk said the drone attack “was not aimed only at Poland, but at European states as well”.
US president Donald Trump suggested the incursion of Russian attack drones into Poland could have been “a mistake”, but added, “I’m not happy about anything to do with the whole situation.”
But Mr Tusk responded on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Friday, saying: “We would also wish that the drone attack on Poland was a mistake. But it wasn’t. And we know it.”
The commencement of Russia’s military exercises comes as Ukraine's foreign minister welcomed his Polish counterpart in Kyiv ahead of talks on shared security, EU and Nato accession and increasing pressure on Moscow on Friday.
“Against the backdrop of Russia's escalation of terror against Ukraine and provocations against Poland, we stand firmly together,” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, wrote on X.
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