Poland Deploys 40,000 Troops to Border as Russian 'Zapad' Drills Put NATO on Edge

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – In a dramatic and muscular show of force on the tense eastern frontier of the NATO alliance, Poland has begun deploying approximately 40,000 soldiers to its borders with Belarus and Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, a move that comes just days after Polish and allied jets scrambled to shoot down multiple Russian drones and on the eve of Moscow's highly scrutinized "Zapad 2025" joint military exercises.

The massive troop movement represents a significant escalation in a region already on a knife's edge, transforming the Polish frontier into a heavily militarized zone as the war games, which Warsaw has branded as explicitly "offensive," officially commenced on Friday.

The Zapad, or "West," exercises, a series of periodic joint maneuvers by Russian and Belarusian forces, have long been a source of anxiety for NATO's eastern flank members, who view them as a form of strategic intimidation. This year's iteration, however, is being conducted under the dark shadow of the ongoing war in Ukraine and, more immediately, a serious violation of Polish airspace.

According to a report from TVP World, the heightened tensions follow a large-scale drone incursion on Wednesday, which saw Polish and Dutch military aircraft take action to shoot down the Russian drones. The incident has lent a grave new weight to the drills, which are scheduled to run until Tuesday and will involve tens of thousands of troops conducting war games in close proximity to the Polish border.

The Polish government has made it clear that it is taking no chances. "Poland has been preparing for the Zapad 2025 maneuvers for many months," Cezary Tomczyk, a Polish deputy defense minister, told broadcaster Polsat News.

He confirmed that in addition to the 40,000-strong deployment, the Polish Army had already conducted preparatory exercises involving over 30,000 Polish and allied soldiers to ensure an adequate response. 

"Let’s remember that Zapad 2025 is an offensive exercise," Tomczyk stated, echoing the deep-seated fears within the Polish leadership that the drills could be a precursor to Russian aggression toward NATO and EU countries.

This sentiment is shared at the highest levels of the Polish government.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has warned of "critical days" for his country, stating that Poland is closer to "open conflict" than at any point since the Second World War.

Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski added earlier this week that he expects "very aggressive scenarios" to be acted out by Russia and Belarus during the exercises, drawing ominous parallels to similar drills that preceded Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008 and its full-scale attack on Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also issued a warning, suggesting that the Zapad maneuvers could be "a cover" for a potential assault on countries further west.

In response to the perceived threat, Warsaw has taken decisive action, announcing on Tuesday, even before the drone incident, that it would temporarily close the country’s border crossings with Belarus for the duration of the Zapad exercises.

Following the airspace violation, the authorities in Warsaw hardened their stance, declaring that the border would now be closed "until further notice." The Polish authorities have claimed that one of the primary goals of the Zapad drills is to rehearse an attack on the so-called Suwałki Gap, a thin and strategically vital strip of land that joins Poland and Lithuania but is sandwiched between Belarus and Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave.

The area has long been described by military strategists as NATO’s “Achilles’ heel.”

Moscow has consistently downplayed these concerns. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated on Thursday that the drills are "planned exercises" and are "not aimed against anyone," rejecting Poland's claim that they constitute an "aggressive" show of force.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has similarly dismissed fears of a simulated attack on the Suwałki corridor as "utter nonsense." Earlier this year, Belarusian state media even quoted the country's defense minister as saying the drills had been moved away from the borders with Poland and Ukraine specifically to "reduce tensions."

Despite these assurances, the nature of the exercises has put the entire region on high alert. Both Lithuania and Latvia, which also border Belarus, have ramped up their security and announced partial airspace closures.

This year's Zapad drills have a new and dangerous dimension, as they are the first to be held since Russia stationed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. According to a France24 report, Minsk announced in August that the exercises would involve Russia's new experimental nuclear-capable missile, dubbed Oreshnik, as well as specific nuclear strike training.

International military analysts, however, are divided on the true significance of the drills. Some, like Moscow-based analyst Alexander Khramchikhin, told AFP that the importance of the exercises was being overblown, calling them "just a show" with little "special significance."

Others, such as Vassily Kashin, a member of the Kremlin-linked Russian International Affairs Council, see them as "both a demonstration and real combat training." "We must be ready to defend Belarus, if necessary," he told AFP, noting that the practice of rival drills by Russia and NATO's eastern members is likely to become a permanent fixture, "just as it was during the Cold War."

This year's Zapad is expected to be smaller in scale than the 2021 iteration, which involved some 200,000 troops just months before the invasion of Ukraine.

With hundreds of thousands of Russian troops currently deployed across the sprawling front line in Ukraine, Lithuania has estimated that around 30,000 troops will be involved in the current drills.

The tensions on the border are further complicated by the long-running migrant crisis, in which Minsk and Moscow have been accused of funneling Asian and African migrants into Poland as a form of hybrid warfare aimed at destabilizing the European Union.

In a surprising twist that highlights the complex and often contradictory nature of the relationship, General Wiesław Kukuła, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, revealed that Belarusian authorities had actually warned Poland's military that drones were heading into Polish airspace ahead of Wednesday's incursion, a communication he described as "helpful" but "surprising."