U.S. military officers recently observed the Belarus-based joint Zapad-2025 exercises between Belarus and Russia. Held on NATO‘s doorstep and explicitly designed to rehearse war against the alliance Washington, D.C., leads, it was startling to see U.S. officers among the observers. Alongside them were Turkish and Hungarian representatives, as Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov presided over drills that simulated attacks on the West.
The exercises spanned Belarusian and Russian territory and extended into the Baltic and Barents seas. They featured demonstrations of nuclear and missile capabilities, including the Kinzhal ballistic missile, which has already been used in Ukraine, and the Zircon hypersonic system. According to Belarus’s Defense Ministry, about 7,000 Belarusian and 1,000 Russian troops participated. This was a sharp decline from Zapad-2021, when over 100,000 Russian personnel took part, using the cover of drills to mask deployments in preparation for the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The war games were held for the first time since, and the reduced scale showed the manpower constraints Moscow faces after more than 3 1/2 years of war.
But the drills also came after dozens of Russian drones crossed into Polish airspace last week and into Romania over the weekend, investigating NATO’s defenses. Poland reacted by deploying 40,000 troops to its border with Belarus and closing the frontier entirely.
To create a veneer of openness, Belarus invited international diplomats, military attaches, and media representatives to observe the war games. But this did little to hide the country’s role in Russia’s war. Minsk continues to offer territory for Russian operations, to allow drone launches into NATO states, and to expand military production in service of Moscow’s campaign. In this context, the image of U.S. officers attending Zapad-2025, even if it was simply an act of diplomacy, projected weakness, not strength. It confused allies who saw the exercises as aimed squarely at them.
Belarus’s dictatorial president, Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for more than 30 years, has little independence left. His survival depends heavily on Moscow’s support to suppress domestic dissent, especially since the mass protests that followed his fraudulent 2020 reelection. Around 1,000 people are estimated to be imprisoned on politically motivated charges. The Trump administration, in contrast to former President Joe Biden’s, has succeeded in negotiating the release of two groups of political prisoners, around 65 people, through sanctions relief. However welcome this development is, nothing is stopping Minsk from arresting more people and using them as hostages in future dealings.
What is Washington, D.C.,’s strategy here?
If its goal is to drift Lukashenko away from Moscow, this is not the way to go about it. Lukashenko may hedge and play at being a middleman between the East and West while Putin looks weak, but he will never risk his position for half-hearted U.S. engagement.
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Moreover, if Putin were to emerge stronger and claim victory in Ukraine, Lukashenko’s room for maneuver would disappear overnight. With Washington, D.C.,’s position uncertain, Minsk is hedging for both outcomes. Yet as Belarus turns a blind eye to Russian drones crossing NATO airspace, watching over as Russian troops throw the same missiles that kill Ukrainian civilians, Washington, D.C., emboldens Lukashenko.
When the Kremlin is killing Ukrainians, investigating NATO defenses, and holding Belarus in a vice, sending U.S. officers to witness Russia’s saber-rattling was not only morally questionable but strategically shortsighted, sending mixed signals both to allies and to adversaries.