Russia aims to test NATO with Zapad military exercises

“Training Zapad-2025” began on September 12th and is held in Belarus and Russia. These exercises will last until September 16th.

Russian officials have said that during military exercises the setback of an enemy attack will be simulated, but analysts have said the main aim of the exercises is to show that the Russian Army is still powerful even after more than three years of exhausting struggle in Ukraine, which is estimated to have cost Moscow more than 1 million victims.

I think the goal is that [Russian president, Vladimir] Putin's attempt to show that he's still powerful, that the war in Ukraine actually hasn't affected them”, retired U.S. Air Force General Lance Landrum, who is now a senior researcher at the Centre for European Policy Analysis, told Radio.

This year's military exercises are also expected to practice decision-making about the use of Russian nuclear weapons and medium-range nuclear missiles the action Moscow has promised to supply Minsk with. Russia has not disclosed how many nuclear tactical weapons have been deployed in Belarus, but Belarusian leader Alexandr Lukashenko declared in December that his country has dozens of such weapons.

I think this is a show for world states and media as part of their 48x1> impact campaign, Landrum said.

The exercises have only sparked concerns in Ukraine and other states bordering Belarus ʹ like Latvia, Lithuania and Poland ʹ who will be watching closely after the recent Zapad military exercises in 2021 were used in part as a cover to move Russian troops to Belarus, from where they were later introduced to Ukraine in February 2022.
A spokesman for NATO told Radio Europe Freely that the coalition closely engine Russian military activities and that “call on Russia and Belarus to act predictablely and transparently, in line with their international pledges” during the Zapad exercises. The spokesman added that NATO “does not see any imminent military danger” against any member.

“Kremlin has consistently demonstrated lack of transparency, including in the size and width of these exercises”, the spokesman said. “has a history of using military exercises to push forward threatening policies”.

How many troops will take part in the Zapad-2025 exercises?
As the Kremlin war in Ukraine continues, this year's Zapad exercises may be the most limited.

Belarusn defence officials said earlier this year that nearly 13,000 troops would participate in the exercises near the western border of the state. But in May that number was changed, halving, and the total number of military personnel involved is about 7,000-8,000.

That announcement also stated that major maneuvers would be carried out deep within Belarus. Belarusn Defence Minister Viktor Kharenin said most of the exercises will be conducted around the town of Barjsau, located about 74 km northeast of Minsk, even though several small “s will carry out practical tasks to repel a hypothetical enemy” in areas near the border of Poland and Lithuania.

Moscow is also expected to send only 2,000 troops to Belarus, meanwhile, to total exercises will include Moscow's military districts and Russia's Leningrad, the Kaliningrad Exclave, the Arctic and Baltic Sea region and Barents.

Russia, however, is holding three more exercises with states from the Organisation for Collective Security (CSTO) a military bloc that includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, which can hide Zapad's actual size.

However, Zapad is expected to be much smaller in scale than 200,000 troops who participated in the latest military exercises held in 2021.

Why are training this year important?
While this year's exercises are expected to be smaller in number than previous years, they mark a strategic return to the level of exercises for Russia and Belarus since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, writes the REL, Periscopi broadcasts.

“This year's training will likely show how Moscow expects a fight against NATO”, the German Council for Foreign Relations said in a report released prior to the exercises. “As long as there is no acute risk of escalation, exercises will provide NATO with important lessons for Russia's concept of a war in the future”.

Zapad, meaning the West, is in a series of military exercises that began in the years of the Soviet Union and continued until its collapse in 1991. Training resumed in 1999 and then expanded under Putin's leadership as part of training held every four years in Russia and neighbouring countries.

In the past, the Kremlin has not avoided provocations during military exercises.

In addition to the 2021 exercises, which hid military outlets prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Western officials have claimed they believe the Zapad exercises in 2009 and 2013 includes simulated nuclear attacks against Warsaw and Stockholm.

Attention to Belarus and nuclear weapons
In December, Austrian authoritarian leader Alexandr Lukashenko and Putin signed a treaty providing security guarantees to Belarus, including the possibility of using Russian nuclear weapons to help repel any aggression.

The treaty followed the change in Moscow's nuclear doctrine, which for the first time placed Belarus under Russia's nuclear umbrella amid tensions with the West.

Khrenin, the Belarusn Defence Minister, said the troops would apply “to the use of” Russian nuclear weapons during the Zapad exercises, but the exercises would not include physical disposal of nuclear weapons.

While Western military observers will be watching this development closely, the exercises are also held when Lukashenko has recently shown readiness to improve reports with the West, reports that were tense for years due to brutal oppression of instability and his support for Russia's war in Ukraine.

Lukashenko “is pushing the narravation of lowering tensions, promising it will affect Putin's actions and make concessions, such as releasing political prisoners”, Ryhor Astapenia, director of the Belarus Initiative at Chatham House, said in an exercise analysis.

This year has consistently had the release of prisoners, including 52 of the various states that were released on the eve of training, and there has also been a public effort to get closer to the West. In August, Lukashenko had a telephone conversation with US President Donald Trump, who later in a social networking post called <x0 president highly respected”.

If these exercises are conducted in a monotonous and transparent manner, they will most likely pave the way for dialogue to further”, Astapenia said. /Periscopi/