Alexander Volfovich, State Secretary of Belarus’s Security Council, said the goals of the Zapad-2025 exercises are not offensive. According to him, the drills are purely defensive and are intended to protect the Union State.
“Exercises are being held on the territory of our neighboring states exclusively with offensive aims. Our exercises have an exclusively defensive purpose: the protection of the Union State,” Volfovich said.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, by contrast, described the upcoming Russian-Belarusian exercises as “highly aggressive” from the standpoint of military doctrine. Against that backdrop, Poland and NATO are holding the Iron Defender drills, involving about 30,000 troops and 600 pieces of equipment.
In comments to Novaya Gazeta Europe, Ukrainian military observer Serhiy Morfinov said Zapad-2025 is officially presented as rehearsal for joint actions by the regional grouping of Russian and Belarusian forces. In his view, however, such drills historically go back to Cold War-era maneuvers such as Zapad-77, when the USSR and Warsaw Pact countries practiced full-scale combat operations against Western states.
Pavlo Lakiychuk, head of security programs at the Kyiv-based Strategy XXI Center for Global Studies, told Novaya Gazeta Europe that public attention has focused mainly on the exercises as a joint Belarusian-Russian event. But, he said, that is not the main point.
According to the expert, Zapad-2025 should primarily be seen as strategic command-and-staff exercises of the Russian Armed Forces involving additional forces. He explained that this format is used to train headquarters and strategic command bodies to conduct combat operations in a theater of war.