Belarus will scale back military drills with Russia planned for September, cutting the number of soldiers taking part and moving them away from the western border, Minsk said Wednesday.
Belarus is a key Russian ally and allowed its territory to be used as a staging post for Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Kyiv, as well as Poland and the Baltic states, have repeatedly expressed alarm about possible military build-ups in the country.
“We have decided to reduce the parameters of the ‘Zapad-2025’ exercise and to move its main manoeuvres deep into the territory of the Republic of Belarus, away from the western borders,” Defence Minister Viktor Khrenin said in a statement posted Wednesday on the ministry’s Telegram channel.
“The number of troops participating in the drills will be cut almost by half,” General Valery Revenko, the head of the ministry’s department for international cooperation said at a security forum in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.
Russian state media reported around 13,000 soldiers were originally set to take part in the drills.
Defence minister Khrenin said the move was “to demonstrate to our allies and partners around the world the truly peace-loving position of the Republic of Belarus.”
The Zapad military drills usually involve tens of thousands of troops in a show of force close to Belarus’s western border with EU and NATO members.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky last month warned Russia was “preparing something” in Belarus “using military drills as cover.
“That’s usually how they start a new attack,” he said.
Around 200,000 troops participated in the 2021 edition of Zapad, staged just months before Moscow invaded Ukraine.
