Poland says it’s closing crossings with Belarus attributable to safety considerations associated to Moscow-Minsk army drills
Poland will shut its border with Belarus later this week as Minsk prepares to carry joint army workouts with Moscow, Prime Minister Donald Tusk introduced on Tuesday.
The Zapad-2025 army drills, scheduled for September 12-16, is a part of common strategic workouts held roughly each 4 years by Russia and Belarus. Tusk described the maneuvers as “very aggressive” and staged “very near the Polish border.”
“The response contains maneuvers on our aspect, by the Polish army and allied forces,” Tusk mentioned throughout a authorities assembly. The border closure will take impact Thursday evening, he added.
Poland final week launched its Iron Defender-25 train with 30,000 troops. Neighboring Lithuania started its Thunder Strike nationwide protection drill on Tuesday. Each international locations are additionally taking part with eight different NATO allies within the army bloc’s Tarassis 25 train.
Belarusian Protection Minister Viktor Khrenin final month criticized Warsaw for citing the train as a pretext for mobilizing the 30,000 Polish troops.
“This can be a severe group, in response to our estimates. We will probably be monitoring it and react accordingly,” Khrenin mentioned. “Ought to it present any signal of aggression towards Belarus, we’ll discover means to reply.”
Minsk has mentioned the Russian-Belarusian drills this yr will contain as much as 13,000 troops and pledged transparency for worldwide observers.
Khrenin additionally instructed media that Russian and Belarusian forces would prepare within the deployment of the Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missiles, unveiled final yr throughout what Moscow described as a “take a look at strike” on a Ukrainian army plant. The weapon was developed after the US pulled out of a bilateral treaty with Russia in 2019, which banned each nations from creating land-based missiles of that vary.
Moscow has accused NATO of fueling tensions for many years via large-scale workouts, expanded deployments in Japanese Europe and pledges to ultimately admit Ukraine into the alliance – actions Russia says threaten its safety.
