In a large field 45 miles (72km) from Belarus’ capital Minsk, a battle is raging.
There are giant explosions as Sukhoi-34 bombers drop guided bombs. Huge plumes of smoke darken the sky.
The whole area echoes to the sound of exploding mortar and artillery shells. Helicopter gunships join the attack, while surveillance drones sweep overhead to view the damage.
It’s only an exercise, though.
Together with other international media we’ve been brought to the Borisovsky training ground where Belarusian and Russian forces are taking part in joint manoeuvres.
It’s part of the Zapad-2025 (“West 2025”) military drills. Military attachés, too, from a variety of embassies are observing the drill from a viewing platform.
These are planned exercises – “West 2025” takes place every four years.
In 2022 200,000 troops took part, while this year’s exercises involved fewer soldiers.
Moscow and Minsk maintain that the drills are of a purely defensive nature, that they’re designed to strengthen the security of Russia and Belarus and to counter any potential external threat.
I remember hearing similar claims three and a half years ago.
In February 2022 I visited Belarus to report on the Belarusian-Russian military exercise “Union Resolve”. When the exercise was over, instead of returning home Russian troops invaded neighbouring Ukraine from the territory of Belarus.
This time Belarus insists it has nothing to hide.
Representatives of 23 states, including the US, Turkey and Hungary, watched the military exercise.
“We consider that the exercise is unprecedented in its transparency,” Major General Valery Revenko, assistant to the Belarusian defence minister, told journalists at the training ground.
“We are not threatening anyone. We are for constructive and pragmatic dialogue.”
Clearly Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk isn’t convinced. He had dubbed the “West 2025” drills “very aggressive”. Poland shut its border with Belarus ahead of the exercises, prompting an angry response from Minsk.
“West 2025” coincides with a period of heightened tension in the eastern European region. To the south, Russia shows no sign of ending its war on Ukraine.
Last week Poland accused Russia of intentionally violating its air space with a Russian drone incursion. Nato scrambled fighter jets to shoot down some of the drones.
Moscow responded by claiming that it “hadn’t planned to engage targets on Polish territory.”
Yesterday Romania revealed that a Russian drone had breached its airspace, too. In Europe there is widespread concern that such drone incursions are no accident, but a Russian strategy to test the unity and resolve of European leaders and of the Nato alliance.
Both Russia and Belarus have made efforts recently to improve ties with Washington and to construct a relationship with the Trump administration. But in the case of both Moscow and Minsk relations with Europe remain strained.
The decision by the Belarusian authorities to invite international media to the “West 2025” exercise can be seen two ways.
First, as an attempt at transparency – that’s certainly how Minsk is portraying it.
But in the explosions and the gunfire on the Borisovsky training ground there is, perhaps too, a message for the West. And first and foremost, for Europe.
That message may read something like this: “See and consider the firepower on your doorstep; confrontation with Moscow is not in your best interest.”
