COLD WAR ANALOGY
Usually held every four years, the 2025 iteration of Zapad is the first during the conflict in Ukraine, and is to run until Sep 16.
Moscow sent around 200,000 troops to similar drills in 2021, just months before it launched its Ukraine offensive.
But this year’s Zapad is expected to be much smaller, since hundreds of thousands of Russian troops are deployed in Ukraine.
Belarus had said in January that 13,000 troops would be involved but in May it said the number was to be cut by around half.
According to Tusk, the exercises are designed to simulate the occupation of the Suwalki corridor, a geographical gap that stretches along the border between Poland and Lithuania, flanked by Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
The corridor is considered a vulnerability for NATO and could potentially be the first target of any Russian attack.
