Opinions & Interviews

The concept of the Zapad 2017 exercise stems from a crisis situation, which gets aggravated by actions of illegal armed groups, international separatist and terrorist organizations enjoying outside support. The NATO representative noted it is a very hot topic in the modern world.

Modern approaches to combat warfare were taken into account in order to put together the concept of the Zapad 2017 army exercise. For instance, Belarusian and Russian army units worked together in the Borisovsky exercise area on 20 September to repulse an offensive of the imaginary enemy, stage a counterattack and defeat the enemy afterwards. Thomas Westermann said he had had an opportunity to observe skilled actions of the Russian and Belarusian troops. “It was an excellent demonstration,” he added.

The NATO representative also remarked upon the openness and transparency of the army exercise, during which the observers received all the information they were interested in.

The Belarusian-Russian strategic army exercise Zapad 2017 ended on 20 September. Military attaches of foreign embassies in Belarus and representatives of a number of international organizations: UN, OSCE, NATO, CIS, CSTO, and the International Committee of the Red Cross had been invited to watch the exercise, all in all, over 80 people. Military observers from Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Sweden, and Norway also came to watch the exercise.