Photo courtesy of the Belarusian Defense Ministry's news agency Vayar
MINSK, 12 September (BelTA) – The army exercise Zapad 2025 [West] is an absolutely planned event. State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus Aleksandr Volfovich mentioned the importance of the fact as he visited the army units, which are deployed in the 227th combined-arms military exercise area Borisovsky and are taking part in the Zapad 2025 exercise, BelTA learned from the Defense Ministry.
Aleksandr Volfovich said: “Since 2000 when the decision to create the regional military force was made, such combat training events have been held systematically – every two years in the territory of the Republic of Belarus and in the territory of the Russian Federation in sequence.”
He remarked that the exercise is purely defensive. “The goals of the exercise are first and foremost to practice matters relating to the military security of the Union State [of Belarus and Russia]. The exercise presents no threat for our western neighbors and western partners. The general staffs of the Republic of Belarus and of the Russian Federation have done a lot of preparatory work ahead of the exercise. A series of separate and joint staff exercises have been held,” Aleksandr Volfovich pointed out.
The official went on saying: “Today we have approached the final part: practical actions. The troops, the staffs have moved to sectors of terrain and have started practicing steps. The actual areas where the exercise is taking place have been moved deep into our country’s territory. And today steps of the exercise are being taken far away from the state borders of the Republic of Belarus. The Defense Ministry has done a lot of work in compliance with international requirements and norms in order to notify our Western partners about the exercise and make it transparent.”
Apart from that, a timely briefing session has been hosted by the chief of the Defense Ministry’s International Military Cooperation Department, during which all the interested parties were informed about the goals, tasks, locations, the strength of the forces used for the exercise. In other words, all the international requirements and norms have been met.
“Unfortunately, our invitation to watch the progress of the exercise has been accepted neither by Poland, nor by Lithuania nor by Latvia. They don’t need it. Why? Because today the leadership of Poland and the leadership of the Baltic states understand and know perfectly well that this exercise and everything else taking place in the territory of the Republic of Belarus present no threat for them,” the state secretary of the Security Council of Belarus explained.
“The policy our country pursues indicates that Belarus has always been in favor and is in favor of peace, security, benevolent relations towards each other, mutual respect, respect for interests of states, independence, and territorial integrity,” he continued.
“The events taking place in the military training area today are geared first and foremost not towards increasing some military activity but towards taking care of the matters of the readiness to defend one’s own national interests, one’s own territory,” Aleksandr Volfovich stressed. “We focus not on increasing the number of troops, not on spending money on buying a large amount of weapons and military hardware but on the quality of training of our military personnel. This is why these events are aimed at perfecting the professional skills of our military personnel starting with staffs, general staffs and ending with tactical-level staffs.”
“After hearing out commanding officers of the Russian part of the regional military force and of the Belarusian part, I see that the commanding officers understand the missions they have been given, are practicing and improving matters of interaction, and focus efforts on training their subordinates and the troops. I am confident that everything will proceed in accordance with the plans and tasks assigned to the regional military force,” the state secretary of the Security Council concluded.
Aleksandr Volfovich talked to Belarusian and Russian military personnel, evaluated actions of the troops as they jointly repulsed aerial attacks.
The state secretary of the Security Council noted that the staffs and the troops, which were carrying out their assigned combat training tasks, had demonstrated a high level of training and interaction.
Aleksandr Lukashenko also mentioned that the army exercise Zapad 2025 proceeds in an organized manner and the assigned goals will be accomplished.
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