A serviceman takes part in the "Zapad-2025" (West-2025) joint Russian-Belarusian military drills at a training ground near the town of Borisov, east of the capital Minsk, on September 15, 2025. (Photo by Olesya KURPYAYEVA /4 AFP)T7,000 troops, submarine missile tests, and alleged airspace violations heighten fears of open conflict in Eastern Europe, with Moscow insisting the exercises are defensive while neighbours see them as a threat
Russia and Belarus have launched joint military drills that NATO states say are escalating tensions along the alliance’s eastern flank.
About 7,000 troops, including 6,000 from Belarus, are taking part in the exercises across both countries. Russia also fired a Kalibr cruise missile from its nuclear submarine Arkhangelsk in the Barents Sea, according to state media.
Moscow and Minsk say the drills are purely defensive and designed to simulate a response to an invasion. But NATO allies, already unsettled by recent Russian drone incursions into Poland and Romania, see them as a show of force.
Poland has warned that “open conflict” is closer than at any time since World War II, while Britain said its fighter jets will patrol Polish skies to counter aerial threats. Latvia and Lithuania have also tightened border security and conducted counter-drills.
Belarus’s Defence Minister Viktor Khrenin dismissed Western concerns as “nonsense,” insisting the exercises were limited compared to the massive 200,000-strong Zapad drills of 2021. He said the smaller scale reflected efforts to ease tensions.
Despite that claim, the drills featured heavily choreographed displays — tanks crossing rivers, helicopters skimming treetops, artillery crews firing mock rounds, and drones prepared for strikes. Reporters were excluded from manoeuvres near the Baltic and Barents seas and close to the Polish border.
Belarus highlighted the presence of observers from 23 countries, including U.S. officers, in what it called proof of transparency. Yet for many in NATO, the exercises serve as another reminder of the deepening rift with Moscow as the war in Ukraine grinds on.
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