Polish President Announces Response To West-2025 Exercises

• 26.06.2025, 12:24

"Iron Defender" is really a response to Russian-Belarusian maneuvers.

Belarus announced that it would withdraw the Zapad-2025 exercise from the border with Poland. Earlier, Poland planned its own exercises in response to "Zapad". Poland's president tells "Belsat": if Belarus withdraws the exercises, it's good, but Polish exercises will still be organized.

Polish President Anjay Duda spoke more about the exercises at the NATO summit in The Hague. He confirmed, "Iron Defender" is indeed the answer to the "West".

The defense minister told the president that invitations have been sent to all NATO members for the exercise. The United States troops will definitely be present, as the Americans are already stationed in Poland, but Duda expects others to attend as well - he sees great interest from allies and a high probability of wide participation of NATO members in the exercise.

"There is no doubt that holding such exercises as Zapad-2025 is of great importance," Duda said. - "It should be remembered that after the previous Zapad exercise, Russia attacked Ukraine. We are all aware of that, so now we need to clearly demonstrate our readiness, our strength, that we do not underestimate the threat, that we are resolute and that we are standing here and ready to defend our territory. So this is of fundamental importance."

The large-scale Belarusian-Russian exercise Zapad-2025, scheduled for September, was first supposed to be held under the western borders of Belarus. In late May, the Defense Ministry of Belarus suddenly promised that "the main maneuvers" of the joint military exercises "Zapad-2025" with Russia would be moved away from the borders of NATO countries deep into the territory of Belarus. In addition, "the parameters of the exercises will be reduced.