This opinion was expressed on Espreso by Pavlo Rad, an analyst at the Russian and Belarusian Studies Program of the Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism.”“As for threats from Belarus, I don’t think there could be any significant changes here. First of all, because the Belarusian army is, again, not in the best condition, and there are doubts that they would be able to engage in active combat. The Russians, apparently, are not planning to transfer a massive number of their troops to Belarusian territory. Recently, Ukrainian OSINT investigators reported that most likely, Russian conscripts will be involved in the Zapad-2025 exercises. And again, this is quite natural, given that Russia is now also facing certain resource constraints, focusing on conducting active combat operations, offensive actions primarily in the Pokrovsk direction and in Donetsk region,” he said.Pavlo Rad believes that, for objective reasons, the Russians will not be able to allocate a large portion of their resources to create threats from Belarus.“In addition, another reason why I doubt there could be any serious changes is that Belarus is currently more important for Russia as a logistical and industrial hub rather than as a combat unit. As far as we know, Ukraine does not strike Belarusian territory – neither military-industrial enterprises, nor oil refineries, nor other strategically important facilities. Therefore, this is somewhat advantageous for Russia, as they can produce certain goods there for their needs without fear or risk that they could be damaged, destroyed, or otherwise affected. So, for now, Belarus is needed, let’s say, to manufacture all these materials and, from time to time, to play the nuclear blackmail card,” the analyst noted.What is known about Zapad-2025On October 23, 2024, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense announced joint exercises with Russia called Zapad-2025. They are scheduled for mid-September 2025.Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys stated that NATO is ready to respond to the joint Russian-Belarusian exercises.President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that the Russians are “preparing something” in Belarus in the summer under the cover of military exercises.It was later reported that during the joint Zapad-2025 exercises, Russia and Belarus plan to conduct test strikes with tactical nuclear weapons and the Oreshnik system.On May 28, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin announced that Belarus would move the main maneuvers of the planned Zapad-2025 exercises deeper into the country, allegedly to reduce tensions.On August 6, the first train with Russian troops and equipment arrived in Belarus for the preparation and participation in the Zapad-2025 joint military exercises.On August 11, several hundred Russian soldiers had arrived in Belarus for the Zapad-2025 exercises. Several dozen units of Russian equipment were also sent there.