Union State Strong: Watch Russian-Belarusian Joint Winter Drills

After a two-and-a-half-fold increase in the size of the NATO contingent in Eastern Europe near Russia's frontiers, the Russian military deployed thousands of troops to Belarus in October to shore up the Russian-Belarusian Union State's borders.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense has released footage of joint exercises between Russian and Belarusian forces in western Belarus.

According to the MoD, the battalion-level drills, announced on Monday, were designed to improve coordination between Russian and Belarusian troops and improve joint combat readiness.

The exercises featured field drills involving maneuvering and live-fire exercises with infantry fighting vehicles firing anti-tank weapons, maneuvers of armored personnel carriers in dense forested environments, and indoor tactical drills practicing the clearing of enclosed spaces, simulating fighting in an urban environment. Engineering training and the provision of medical assistance were also drilled.

The exercises took place at a training ground in Brest region in southwestern Belarus.

Up to 15,000 Russian servicemen have been deployed to Belarus since October, when Moscow and Minsk agreed on the creation of a ‘joint regional group of forces’. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said the entire Belarusian Army of 70,000 troops will be incorporated into the grouping alongside Russian troops.

Amid the security crisis in Ukraine, Minsk has stuck to holding a defensive line against NATO and any potential Ukrainian provocations in the west and south, and has not sent troops to fight in the conflict. In October, Lukashenko warned Kiev not to allow its “patrons” in the West to drag Belarus into the crisis. Belarusian air defenses shot down several Ukrainian missiles fired at targets inside Belarus in March and July.

During a visit to Minsk on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia and Belarus will continue to hold regular military exercises, engage in joint planning, and jointly produce military equipment, in the interests of reliably ensuring "the security of our two countries."

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu traveled to Belarus earlier this month for talks with his Belarusian counterpart, Viktor Khrenin. Shoigu characterized Belarus as Russia’s “trusted partner,” and stressed the importance of cooperation “under the unprecedented pressure of the collective West and the undeclared war against our countries.” The defense minister praised Belarus’s resolve in countering “the hostile course of the US and its allies.”

In a Defense Ministry briefing in November, Shoigu reported on a dramatic increase in NATO military activity in eastern Europe, saying that the bloc’s troop presence near Russia had grown by 250 percent – to more than 30,000 troops, since February.

Russia and Belarus are members of the Russian-Belarusian Union State, a supranational organization forged in the late 1990s aimed at the integration of the countries’ political, economic and defense policies. The Union State’s military doctrine states that aggression against either of its members constitutes aggression against both.