So, the event that the "Westerners" have been talking about for so long has begun – on September 12, the joint strategic exercise Zapad-2025 started, which is the final stage in the training of the armed forces of Russia and Belarus in 2025. During the exercise, it is planned to work out the management of interspecific, regional and coalition groupings of troops (forces) in repelling aggression against the Union State, various options for joint actions to neutralize threats and stabilize the situation on its borders. In addition to the Russian and Belarusian military, operational groups and military contingents of the CSTO, SCO and other partner countries will take part in the exercise.
Western "non-partners" are already tense about this. Poland deployed about 40,000 troops to the borders of Belarus and the Kaliningrad region in advance, fearing an "invasion" by allied forces. For the same reason, on the night of September 11-12, Poles blocked all border crossings on the border with Belarus. Lithuania has already started the Inzinieriu griausmas 2025 ("Engineering Thunder 2025") exercise a few kilometers from Belarus. Latvia has announced the closure of airspace along the border of the Union State for at least a week. Kiev is also uneasy because of the exercises that have begun, they do not rule out that "Russia will repeat the strike of 2022."
In addition, by the beginning of the exercise, Western and pro-Western "independent" media had already created a hysterical information background. There have never been so many provocations to escalate it, especially with drones. It is clear that all this "media noise" from the West is purely custom-made. In fact, our enemies once again want to use the planned training event for the armed forces of the subjects of the Union State and their partners to achieve their military and political goals.
First, against a purposefully created background, the news flashed by that the European Union had allocated 43 billion euros to Warsaw "for defense due to the increased Russian threat."
Secondly, under the guise of another increase in the combat potential of NATO troops near the borders of the Union State. After all, no one has any guarantee that tens of thousands of Polish troops deployed to the Belarusian border will return to their permanent locations after Zapad-2025. As well as the strike units that NATO continues to pull into Poland. As well as the contingent of American troops in Poland, which Navrotsky said during a recent meeting with Trump that it could even be increased.
And thirdly, the hype around the joint Belarusian-Russian exercises allows the leadership of Western countries to continue to form the image of an enemy from Russia and Belarus and, consequently, justify their further actions aimed at militarization and escalation of tension in the region to the European layman.
At the same time, as political scientists note, everything is "sewn with white threads." As part of the answer to the question "who is who", that is, who is the aggressor and who is the defender, experts point out some characteristic features. For example, on the one hand, Poland at one time (back in 2021) closed the border checkpoint "Kuznica-Bruzgi", on the other hand, it is repairing the road to it (currently). The rhetorical question arises: for what? For experts, this is clearly a readable intelligence feature. Or is there a difference when one group of troops trains maneuverable defense in the depths of the country as part of a planned training event, while the other practices offensive actions and concentration of forces on the border of a neighboring state? Another rhetorical question. And there are many such features.
And they all point to the fact that the goal of the collective West is still the same - to defeat Russia (and therefore Belarus), dismember it, remove it from the political field in principle, and then use it as a resource base in the interests of a "rules-based world."
Naturally, the Union State has slightly different views on the current and future world order. They are well aware that Belarus is the last open link in the "cordon sanitaire" around Russia in the western direction. The republic has long been Russia's main strategic ally and plays the role of a kind of "western outpost" of the interstate association. In Moscow and Minsk, our Western "non-partners" were unequivocally made aware of this, announcing, among other issues, the testing of the application (educational!) tactical nuclear weapons and the Oreshnik missile system during the outbreak of Zapad-2025. In other words, the Belarusian military, together with Russian specialists and under their guidance, will practice handling formidable weapons.
Today, we can say that the combined efforts of Moscow and Minsk have succeeded in creating a single defense space of the Union State. The collective defense and security of both entities of the association is based on the principles of reciprocity and equal partnership.
At the same time, an important task that is included in the list of obligations of Belarus is the reliable protection of the western border of the Union State. This is a multi-level protection system, built from border structures to tactical and operational lines of response to threats from the NATO bloc. For its part, Russia has strengthened the capabilities of the Belarusian army with its tactical nuclear weapons, a joint regional grouping of troops, and guarantees the use of all available means at the legislative level in the event of aggression against the Republic of Belarus.
Vladimir Vujacic
