"The Situation Today Is Very Similar."

• 14.09.2025, 21:24

What are the dangers of the West-2025 exercise?

Can the attack of Russian drones on Poland be linked to the West-2025 exercises taking place in Belarus? Such a question Charter97.org asked the coordinator of the civil campaign "European Belarus" Dmitry Bondarenko:

- Absolutely. As many experts have pointed out, there are no "exercises" during the war. Any concentration of Russian and Belarusian troops already affects the situation. Ukraine is forced to redeploy its forces to the northern direction.

A hybrid war is being waged at the same time: threats of a strike on the Suwalki corridor are heard. Yesterday Poland closed the border with Belarus, including railroad communication. Apparently, Polish intelligence had information about Russia's forthcoming actions.

Now it is obvious that such a decision of Warsaw had grounds. Russia is raising the level of pre-war action. A massive aircraft incursion into the territory of a NATO country is already aggression. Putin raises the stakes by using the concentration of troops in Belarus under the guise of exercises. Let me remind you that in 2021 there was the Zapad-2021 exercise, and in February 2022 the invasion of Ukraine began. Then Russian troops "partly stayed, partly left", and that was the preparation for the war.

The situation today is very similar: Russia is again taking aggressive actions not only against Ukraine, but also against Poland - from the territory of Belarus.