The ‘Zapad’ exercise and how Lukashenko learned to love the Bomb

In September, Russia conducted a strategic military exercise known as “Zapad-25.” The Zapad series exercises have been held regularly since the 1970s. They are Russia’s largest military exercises intended to both practice theatre-level military operations and conduct geopolitical signaling to communicate the costs and potential escalation risks of a NATO-Russia conflict. This year, Zapad was especially anticipated by analysts. It was the first iteration of the exercise since Russia and Belarus announced their nuclear sharing arrangement and Russia updated its public official deterrence policy—the two most significant changes in Russia’s nuclear posture since Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Media and officials in Belarus made numerous statements before the beginning of the exercise, alluding to Zapad-25 as involving some showstopping nuclear exercises that would showcase Belarus and Russia’s new nuclear ties. But either these exercises did not occur or Belarusian and Russian media simply did not show them, subverting Western expectations. The lack of imagery could be explained by Russia or Belarus being unsure whether to show sensitive operational details. But that does not explain the sudden change in public rhetoric. Instead, the shift in the public statements about Zapad suggests that the Belarusian-Russian relationship may be more complicated than it appears, with Minsk having to balance between its desire for autonomy and its dependence on Russia’s security guarantees.

A nuclear component. In the run-up to the Zapad exercise, Belarusian officials leveraged nuclear rhetoric to frame Russian nuclear deployments in Belarus as a response to regional threats. Meanwhile, Moscow neither confirmed nor denied that the exercise would involve a nuclear component. Belarusian Minister of Defense Viktor Khrenin announced in August that the exercise would include Moscow and Minsk working out the planning for the employment of nuclear weapons and the new mobile nuclear-capable Oreshnik ballistic missile system, which Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko recently announced will be deployed in Belarus by the end of the year. Khrenin also noted that nuclear weapons could inflict unacceptable damage against a potential adversary. He suggested that the exercise would serve as a vehicle for Russia and Belarus to practice operationalizing Russia’s new declaratory policy, as Zapad exercises generally feature counterattacks against NATO attacks into Belarusian or Russian territory.

A few weeks later, Belarusian Deputy Defense Minister Pavel Muraveiko stated that, as part of the exercise, Russia and Belarus were planning for all types of weapons. This announcement allowed Minsk to portray independence and urgency in its rhetoric about perceived threats. Russia may also have quietly benefited from the signaling effect of Belarusian statements, which highlighted the expansion of Russia’s nuclear posture in Belarus and the forward deployment of dual-capable systems, strengthening deterrence against a common threat.

Minsk drew attention to the recent actions of Polish military leadership: Just a few days before the announcement, Poland announced that it would increase the core size of its military to 300,000 soldiers, with the ability to increase to 500,000 if necessary. Khrenin directly referred to this statement in his remarks about the Russian-Belarusian nuclear sharing arrangement, noting that “most alarming of all is the decision of the Polish military leadership to create a group of more than 30-34 thousand troops.” He added, “This is already a serious grouping, in our opinion. We need to look very carefully (we will do this) and react. If they show some kind of aggression towards the Republic of Belarus, we have something to respond with.”

This episode built on longstanding Russian and Belarusian concerns about a deteriorating regional security environment. Even before the nuclear-sharing arrangement, President Alexander Lukashenko had publicly offered in 2022 to host Russian nuclear weapons if the United States relocated its nuclear weapons from Germany to Eastern Europe. For its part, Poland has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine and has expressed interest in hosting US nuclear weapons on its territory.

Russian strategists have also linked the nuclear-sharing arrangement to the perceived vulnerability of Kaliningrad and the idea of a possible proxy-war in Belarus, given the deployment of new US and NATO forces along the Alliance’s eastern flank. In 2024, Lieutenant General Igor Kolesnikov, head of the 12th GUMO—the Russian military formation responsible for the safekeeping of Russia’s nuclear arsenal—and the man in charge of operationalizing the Moscow-Minsk nuclear sharing arrangement, and retired Major General Vyacheslav Kruglov argued that Russia and Belarus must adopt a set of nuclear countermeasures to deter evolving threats.

What happened? Despite all the signaling, the 2025 edition of Zapad turned out to be significantly smaller and largely focused on conventional systems. Although it was underpinned by similar threat perceptions, it was a very different exercise compared to previous theatre-level exercises such as the 2021 edition.

The scenario underpinning this year’s Zapad is consistent with previous iterations of the exercise: A fictional adversary attempts to destabilize a fictional country through covert means, then employs a fast and decisive air attack to paralyze the military and destroy objects of critical infrastructure. According to Deputy Defense Minister Muraveiko, the Russian and Belarusian militaries focused on “repelling enemy attacks” and conducting counter-offensive operations to “restore the territorial integrity of the state.”

This planning scenario highlighted the importance of what the Russians called the “initial period of war,” defined by the threat posed by NATO stand-off range precision munitions in Russian military thinking, and many Russian military elites contend that a NATO-Russia conflict would be decided during this short period. Russian and Belarusian arsenals of dual-capable missile and air systems are critical for repelling fast-paced NATO attacks utilizing conventional precision weapons. Moreover, like previous exercises, the dual-capable systems featured prominently during this year’s Zapad, but in different ways.

Still, Zapad-25 did not appear to go much further beyond that. Or if it did, Belarus and Russia seem to have been hesitant to show it. Videos and media reports on the exercises contained very little in the way of operations involving nuclear-capable systems and broke from the previous trend of Russia and Belarus being increasingly explicit about the presence and operationalization of nuclear weapons in the country.

During the exercise, the Russian Ministry of Defense showed footage of electronic launches by crews operating the Iskander-M mobile short-range ballistic missile system in Kaliningrad. These included reloading to highlight the readiness of these crews to pave the way for Russian bombers by striking air-defense systems. But the warheads of the missiles were not blurred, unlike joint-training videos, and featured a white stripe around the warhead. This suggests that the crews may have had simple conventional training forms, not real warheads. (During the Russo-Belarusian nuclear exercises of the summer of 2024, Russian and Belarusian media blurred out warheads in released videos to suggest that the missiles were armed with real nuclear warheads that may have classified external features.)

More broadly, Russian Tu-160 strategic missile carriers and Tu-22M3 long-range bombers rehearsed cruise missile strikes against the facilities of the mock adversary during patrols over the Barents Sea this year. But long-range aviation played a similar role as during the 2021 Zapad exercise.

The relative lack of an explicit inclusion of nuclear systems may suggest a calibrated approach to signaling, considering the backdrop of Russian incursions into NATO territory. Before this year’s Zapad, Russia and Belarus had explicitly practiced nuclear operations in exercises. For instance, during the summer of 2023, Russian and Belarusian state media showcased Su-25 aircraft and Iskander missile system training for a nuclear mission. At that time, Russian and Belarusian media blurred Iskander warheads and Su-25 bombs to imply the involvement of nuclear forces. Russian state media also showed the 12th GUMO practicing the movement of nuclear weapons in secure transport convoys operating at several airbases throughout Russia.

Political signaling. The sharp contrast between the exercises and rhetoric suggests that dual-capable systems present in Belarus are still primarily conventional systems, and Belarus and Russia’s attempt to present their forces as such by focusing on conventional operations. This differs from past Russian and Belarusian rhetoric that attempted to present these systems as explicitly a nuclear force.

During this year’s Zapad, Belarusian media showed images of Belarusian crews providing air support through strikes on designated targets at “one of the country’s training grounds” in a conventional role as ground units protected the landing site from the “illegal armed groups.” This was a sharp contrast to Russian-Belarusian nuclear exercises of 2024, when Belarusian media showed Su-25 aircraft practicing “nuclear bombs.”

Overall, little has been shown that involved nuclear missions during Zapad-25. At the culmination of the exercise, Deputy Minister of Defense Muraveiko asserted that the planning and consideration of the use of non-strategic nuclear weapons, as well as the evaluation and deployment of the Oreshnik mobile missile system, had been a significant part of the exercise. But Russia remained tight-lipped, and neither Belarusian nor Russian media showed this planning directly in any way. Despite some suggesting that it would not have been shown anyway due to the sensitivity of nuclear planning in general, the Belarusian rhetoric was significantly toned down compared to Khrenin’s initial remarks in August. Instead, Belarusian officials, including President Lukashenko, opted to promote the exercise as an example of military transparency, highlighting the observers who attended from NATO countries, particularly from the United States.

Lukashenko’s balancing act. The Belarusian restraint during Zapad-25 is a product of Lukashenko’s desire to strike a balance between ensuring Russian security guarantees and maintaining Belarus’ independence. Nuclear weapons on Belarusian soil have great utility for Lukashenko: They provide Minsk with guaranteed Russian protection while allowing Lukashenko to simultaneously project himself as the head of an independent, responsible state without much political cost. Minsk’s adjustments to the exercise and outreach to NATO states are part of this projection effort.

Throughout the summer of 2025, Belarus made several outreach attempts to NATO states that may seem incongruous with Russian actions and intent. In May, Minsk and Moscow decided to reduce the scale of Zapad-25 and shifted the location of its main maneuvers far from the Belarusian western border. Minsk said this change was due to heightened tensions in the region, but it could well have been because of the demands of Russia’s war effort in Ukraine. (In 2023, the Zapad exercise was canceled presumably for this reason.)

Long before this, Belarus had also expressed its willingness to resume verification activities under the Vienna Document—a confidence- and security-building mechanism that allows participants to observe and notify each other about their military exercises and other relevant activities to prevent misinterpretation of each other’s military movements. In August, Belarus also invited observers from all participating states of the Vienna Document to observe this year’s Zapad, and it extended the invitation to all foreign military attachés accredited to Belarus’ Ministry of Defense, including representatives from nine NATO member states, initially indicating that observers would have access to the exercise. But Belarus caveated this, stating that it would not invite states to any future exercises that had failed to invite Belarusian observers to its own exercises.

These military cooperation measures were matched by several other diplomatic efforts, which may or may not be directly related to each other. In the span of two weeks, Belarus struck a deal with the United States in which it freed 52 political prisoners in exchange for lifting US sanctions on Minsk’s national airline, Belavia. According to Washington, this was an attempt to have Lukashenko serve as a conduit to President Putin to find a resolution to the war in Ukraine. Belarus has also tried to present itself as being cooperative with NATO on the issue of “stray” Russian drones entering Polish airspace in recent weeks. Minsk reported that Belarusian air defenses had managed to shoot down some of these drones, and Belarusian authorities warned Poland and Lithuania that other drones were on the way from its territory. Many of these efforts are incongruous with continued Russian intractability over military affairs in the region.

Now what? Belarus attempts to navigate a delicate balancing act by using the presence of nuclear weapons in its territory as a tool for signaling agency and responsibility, while Russian control over those weapons constrains its autonomy. In 2024, Russia revised its declaratory policy to state that it reserved the right to employ nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against Belarus, with the employment of conventional weapons, “which creates a critical threat to their sovereignty and/or territorial integrity.”

Belarus’s nuclear sharing arrangement with the Kremlin makes it far more difficult for Minsk to act independently, and it has introduced a great deal of skepticism from NATO states that Belarus can make large changes to its foreign policy now that its strategic posture is entangled with that of Russia. For example, in the event of war, Belarusian forces would become part of a regional grouping of forces under Russian military command. With its decision to commence a nuclear-sharing arrangement with Russia, Russia appears to have absorbed Belarus into its nuclear posture, considering that its presence within Belarusian territory links the Russian nuclear force to Belarusian conventional forces. Moreover, President Lukashenko assured that it remained in Moscow’s orbit merely a couple of days after Zapad, as he was eager to note to reporters on September 25 that Oreshnik was still en route to Belarusian territory as was agreed upon a few months ago.

This year’s Zapad underscores the complex interplay between military signaling, political maneuvering, and nuclear posture in the Russia-Belarus relationship. While many in the West are happy to write off Belarus as a Russian client state entirely dependent on Putin, the reality is more complicated. For the Lukashenko regime, Russian nuclear weapons are a tool in the box to serve as a deterrent to assure its own political survival.

Belarus seems intent on testing how far Moscow’s leash will stretch, but it remains to be seen whether its balancing act could even succeed. After all, Moscow may have allowed these diplomatic overtures because it saw it as beneficial to its own interests. And interests and priorities do change.