Zapad-2025 maneuvers, which are to take place in September in Belarus, will be smaller and located further from the border with Poland, which is to officially “reduce tension”. The expert of the Institute of Central Europe Krzysztof Fedorowicz in an interview with PAP claims, however, that this decision has several hidden motives.
The head of the Belarusian Ministry of Defense Wiktar Chrenin announced this week that “it was decided to reduce the parameters of Zapad-2025 exercises and the transfer of main maneuvers deep into the territory of Belarus.” He justified this by striving to “reduce tension”.
According to Dr. hab. Krzysztof Fedorowicz, an analyst for Belarus from the Institute of Central Europe, limiting the size of maneuvers just under NATO's breath is paradoxically another element of propaganda. “The point is that the West does not know what exactly is going on and thinking about the gesture of good will,” he explained.
The expert emphasized that there is a second bottom behind each decision, and in this case there may be even a few of them.
The first explanation – according to the expert – is the most likely, is to try to conceal that Russia lacks soldiers who could participate in large maneuvers in Belarus, because those who are fighting in Ukraine.
“It was announced that 100,000 soldiers would take part in them. Now we are talking about several thousand, in addition not only Russian, but also Belarusian and from other countries of the organization of collective security,” explained Fedorowicz and added that it is not only about people, because Belarusian military magazines were also solidly extended from equipment that came to Ukraine.
The interlocutor of PAP drew attention to the current concentration of 50 thousand. Russian soldiers in the Kurski region. In his opinion, “the Kremlin can prepare something big”, which requires significant involvement of people and equipment. “On the other hand, maneuvers simply have to be carried out for the very fact of conducting them so that it is not said in the West that the exercises do not take place,” he noted.
According to the expert, the second reason may be the desire to prepare Belarus as a possible place of future conversations regarding the ending or regulating the conflict in Ukraine.
“This rarely appears in the media, but recently the Russians have suggested several times that Belarus could act as a place +good services +” – noted Fedorowicz, reminding that the state was also a “third page” in the formats Minsk 1 and Minsk 2, when it was still creating multi -term in foreign policy.
The third possible explanation for changing the location of maneuvers is – as Fedorowicz pointed out – fear of unwanted incidents. The expert pointed out that Belarus has two large training grounds – one near Brest, about 2 km from the border with Poland, and the other near Grodno, which practically adheres to the border with Lithuania. This creates a great risk of accidental airspace violations by aircraft. “Two kilometers is as much as a ball fired from a rifle can fly, not to mention other types of missiles,” Fedorowicz pointed out.
The fourth of the possibilities mentioned by an expert in an interview with PAP is the fact that for some time in Belarus has been arranged atomic weapons, in the depths of the country. “It may be to organize exercises involving the protection of these nuclear installations,” he explained.
Finally, in the analyst's assessment, it may be a fear that there is a much greater chance of surveillance of maneuvers by various radioelectronic methods in the immediate vicinity of Poland and Lithuania borders.
Krzysztof Fedorowicz stipulated that there may still be a reason for the decision to limit the size and change of the location of ZAPAD-2025 maneuvers. Regardless of what he is, there can be no mighty of tension, only smoky veil. “It is an attempt that we will look in a different direction to take some action at this time,” summed up the expert. (PAP)
Gru/ BST/ MHR/
