Poland has closed all border points with Belarus and sent 40,000 troops to its east after Russia and Belarus kicked off military drills called Zapad-2025 on Friday, heightening tensions with NATO. The drills are officially called defensive and occur just days after Polish forces shot down what they claimed were Russian drones that violated their airspace, some of which they claimed flew over Belarus.
Poland’s Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski called the drills “aggressive war scenarios against our country and Moscow are increasing risks to the region.” All road and rail crossings at the Polish-Belarus border have been halted, said Kierwinski.
Moscow and Minsk both claim the Zapad-2025 meaning “West” is about checking their ability to repel an attack and regain lost territory. The drills will take place across Belarus, Russia, and in the Baltic Sea and Barents Sea and would include coordination for deploying tactical nuclear forces as well as experimenting deploying systems like the Oreshnik missile platform. Belarus’ Defence Minister Viktor Khrenin recently confirmed that Belarus is hosting Russian nuclear arms and has increased NATO’s concern.
The exercises call to mind Zapad-2021, which presented the pretext for Russia’s full-scale assault on Ukraine in 2022. Opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has highlighted how Belarus has again become a “springboard for Putin’s aggression.”
Considering this, Lithuania and Poland undertook parallel defensive drills – Fierce Wolf 2025 and Iron Defender-25, while Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia created temporary no-fly zones. Multiple Baltic states are also seeking to opt out of the anti-landmine treaty to secure their borders, due to a “deteriorating security situation.”
