Show of firepower in Russia-Belarus struggle video games stirs unease throughout Europe | Belarus

Over an enormous rolling area, Russian and Belarusian fighter jets drew fireplace as tanks shattered mock picket homes and the thrill of drones crammed the air. Moments later, troops stormed in, hoisting the allies’ flags above a “liberated” piece of land consumed by flames.

The navy drills, a part of the main Zapad-2025 navy workout routines and staged on the Borisov coaching floor in Belarus, had been billed as a defensive response to a notional western invasion – in impact Nato. Zapa, which is the Russian phrase for “west”, refers to navy drills centered on the western theatre.

Yet the show of firepower, witnessed throughout a uncommon western media go to to the authoritarian state, has stirred unease in European capitals amid mounting regional tensions and fears that Moscow is probing Nato’s defences after Russian drones entered Poland and Romania final week.

“The exercises, in our view, are unprecedentedly open. We pose no threat to anyone and stand for building a constructive and pragmatic dialogue,” Valery Revenko, a senior Belarusian navy official, advised reporters after the drills.

He added that the drills, on account of finish on Tuesday, had been scaled down to focus on their defensive nature and had been held farther from Nato’s borders than initially deliberate, in what he described as an effort to scale back tensions in jap Europe.

Even so, western capitals will likely be watching carefully, aware that Zapad-2021 gave Vladimir Putin cowl to maneuver giant formations of troops and tools westward – a lot of which, months later, took half within the invasion of Ukraine, together with from Belarusian territory.

The workout routines additionally underscored a rising rift between Europe and Washington of their approaches to the Kremlin.

In a shock go to, two US navy officers attended Monday’s struggle video games – the primary identified go to by American representatives to a Russian navy drill in years.

“The best viewing seats will be provided for you,” the Belarusian defence minister, Viktor Khrenin, advised one of many two attache, named as Bryan Shoupe, earlier than the drills.

“Thank you for the invitation,” mentioned Shoupe, shaking fingers with Khrenin.

The US officers, who declined to talk to the Guardian, stood out amongst navy representatives from Russia’s conventional allies – authoritarian states in Africa, in addition to China, Myanmar and others.

But their presence, swiftly seized on by Russian and Belarusian state media to counsel the drills carried world weight, is prone to heighten European fears that Donald Trump is unwilling to take a tough line on Moscow or additional isolate the Russian chief.

Amid that uncertainty over Washington’s resolve, Poland has responded to the drills by deploying as much as 40,000 troopers to its border with Belarus, whereas European allies have despatched further jets to patrol in opposition to potential Russian drone incursions.

Warsaw has additionally closed its border with Belarus for an indefinite interval, dealing a painful financial blow to Alexander Lukashenko, who depends upon the route for the transit of Chinese and Russian items. The transfer provoked anger in Moscow, which vowed to retaliate.

“The Russian government has asked us publicly to reconsider. Well, we would like the Russian government to reconsider sending arsonists and drones into Poland,” Poland’s overseas minister, Radosław Sikorski, advised the Guardian in an interview in Kyiv on Saturday.

The Zapad-2025 drills are a fraction of the size of Zapad-2021, which concerned as much as 200,000 Russian personnel and is now thought to be one of many stress-tests for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

According to the Belarusian defence ministry, about 1,000 Russian troops had been collaborating alongside 7,000 Belarusian forces – a stark illustration of Moscow’s manpower scarcity after the heavy toll of its struggle in Ukraine. On Monday, solely a handful of Russian troopers had been seen on the coaching grounds.

Konrad Muzyka, a navy analyst with Rochan Consulting in Poland, mentioned it was tough to attract agency conclusions from this 12 months’s Zapad drills, as Belarus and Russia had launched much less data than ordinary.

“One scenario is that Russia doesn’t really have the time to do a proper Zapad exercise this year, with most of its forces engaged in Ukraine,” Muzyka mentioned.

But he added that one other clarification might be that the perimeters wished to “obfuscate what’s happening in Belarus and the scenarios they are practising”.

Belarus has been an important ally for Russia in the course of the invasion of Ukraine, providing its territory as a launchpad for Moscow’s preliminary thrust from the north in February 2022 and supplying the Russian military with clothes, gear and tools.

Lukashenko, nevertheless, has resisted Kremlin strain to ship his personal troops into the battle – a step that will be deeply unpopular with each the military and the broader inhabitants.

Still, Belarus’s navy has turn out to be ever extra entwined with Moscow’s.

A sweeping safety treaty signed in December 2024 additional deepened that integration and positioned Minsk below Russia’s nuclear umbrella. Lukashenko has since introduced that Russia’s Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile will likely be deployed in Belarus this 12 months.

“You could say the Belarusian armed forces are an extension of Russia’s western military district, and you wouldn’t be far from the truth. They cooperate at every level – tactical, operational, strategic. Belarus is essentially a forward-deployed logistics base for Russian forces,” mentioned Muzyka.

Military analysts cautioned that it was extremely unlikely that Belarus would ever be a part of the preventing in Ukraine, or that Moscow would use its territory to launch a renewed push into Ukraine.

“Ukraine has heavily fortified and mined all possible invasion avenues from Belarus,” mentioned Aleksander Alesin, a navy analyst in Minsk.

“The element of surprise is gone. Meanwhile, Russia’s reserves are stretched out,” Alesin added.

For Lukashenko, the workout routines come at a fragile second. Well-practised at hedging between Moscow and the west, the Belarusian chief’s brutal crackdown on dissent after the rigged 2020 elections has left him a pariah in Europe and pushed him into an more and more vassal-like relationship with Russia.

Sensing a political alternative, he has in latest months made recent overtures to Trump’s administration, casting himself as a key channel between Washington and Moscow to finish the struggle in Ukraine.

Last week, these efforts appeared to bear fruit when Belarus secured restricted US sanctions reduction for its nationwide airline after Lukashenko ordered the discharge of greater than 50 prisoners, amongst them a British-Belarusian lady.

While Lukashenko claimed small victories on the worldwide stage, few in Belarus appeared within the spectacle of the drills at residence.

In Borisov, town nearest to the coaching grounds, residents mentioned they paid little consideration to the workout routines, voicing as a substitute their hope that the nation can be spared direct involvement within the struggle in Ukraine.

Since the mass crackdown on dissent, few Belarusians have dared to talk brazenly to overseas reporters. Yet behind the concern, flashes of anger and frustration on the nation’s deepening isolation seep by way of.

Tatyana, a librarian in Borisov, lamented that after the post-election crackdown and the imposition of western sanctions, cooperation with European companions had ended and the cabinets of overseas books had thinned. In their place have come shipments of Russian and Chinese titles – from the 2 nations that assist preserve Lukashenko’s regime afloat.

“I just hope things go back to normal,” she mentioned. “We want to have dialogue with the west again.”

Additional reporting by Shaun Walker in Kyiv