Poland to close Belarus border amid Russian Zapad military exercises

Sep 9, 2025 | Defence

Keep our news free from ads and paywalls by making a donation to support our work!

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland has announced that it will close its border crossings with Belarus due to Minsk hosting large-scale joint military exercises with Russia.

“For national security reasons, we will close border crossings with Belarus at midnight on Thursday night,” said Prime Minister Donald Tusk at a meeting with his cabinet on Tuesday afternoon.

“As you know, very aggressive – from the point of view of military doctrine – Russian-Belarusian manoeuvres begin on Friday in Belarus, very close to the Polish border,” he added.

The prime minister also noted that Poland has been suffering “a growing number of various provocations” orchestrated by Moscow and Minsk. Those have included arson attacks and other forms of sabotage, the spreading of propaganda and disinformation, as well as espionage in Poland.

Meanwhile, just last week, Belarus arrested a Polish monk, accusing him of attempting to gather information on the military exercises on behalf of Warsaw, pointed out Tusk. He and his government have called the claims “absurd” and accused Minsk of staging the incident as a further “provocation”.

After today’s cabinet meeting, the prime minister announced that Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) had “detained a Belarusian agent yesterday”. He added that “a Belarusian diplomat supporting the aggressive actions of Belarusian services against our country will also be expelled from Poland”.

Between 12 and 16 September, Belarus will host Russia’s Zapad 2025 military exercises. Officially, 13,000 troops will take part, but analysts expect the real number to be much higher.

Russia has organised its Zapad exercises every four years since 2009. The 2021 instalment, which involved around 200,000 personnel, came just months before Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and many analysts saw it as part of preparations for that attack.

Tusk noted today that one of the “targets” of the military simulations that will take place during Zapad 2025 is the so-called Suwałki Gap, a strategically important stretch of land along the Polish-Lithuanian border that sits between Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

In April this year, Poland announced that it and its allies would respond in an “appropriate manner” to the Zapad exercises in Belarus. That response would include “large Polish and NATO exercises in Poland”, said deputy defence minister Cezary Tomczyk at the time.

Late last month, Polish and other NATO forces, including the US V Corps, launched the Iron Defence 25 exercises in Poland. The manoeuvres, which involve around 30,000 troops, will “test the ability to deter and effectively defend the territory of Poland”, said the defence ministry.

In July, Belarus claimed that it wanted “dialogue” with Poland in order to “reduce the risk of armed clashes” along their border. However, Warsaw notes that Minsk has continued its provocative actions, including engineering a migration crisis at the border.


Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Combat Camera Poland/Flickr (under Combat Camera Poland/Flickr)

Pin It on Pinterest

Support us!