Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has warned that his nation has no choice however to additional strengthen its defence capabilities, because it faces a quick rising NATO army buildup on its borders. Highlighting that the Western army bloc has over the previous three years been establishing new items and boosting its forces close to Belarusian territory, the president cautioned: “whether or not we prefer it or not… we must strengthen our defence capabilities… The buildup of the army part on our borders, particularly by Poland, shouldn’t be merely of concern to us.” He warned that NATO members “should not spending cash on tanks and munitions for no motive,” indicating that this buildup was seen to have aggressive intent.
In January U.S. Army and Lithuanian Army artillery items carried out superior interoperability coaching centred on employment of the M142 HIMARS rocket artillery and ballistic missile programs close to Belarusian territory. Previous this, the U.S. Army in September 2025 deployed 1st Armoured Division AH-64 Apache assault helicopters for deep strike live-fire workouts in Lithuania close to the border. These workouts had been a part of a broader development in direction of a big enhance in U.S. Armydeployments and workouts within the Baltic area.In parallel to the U.S. buildup, the German Army on Could 22 inaugurated the forty fifth Armoured Brigade stationed in Vilnius, Lithuania, offering an elite ahead deployed mechanised warfare functionality on the territory of the previous USSR simply 150 kilometres from the Belarusian capital Minsk.
The Belarusian president’s assertion carefully coincides with a warning by the Russian International Intelligence Service that non-government organisations from the U.S., the UK, Germany, Poland, and different European international locations are “build up belongings to once more try to destabilise the scenario and alter the constitutional order in Belarus.” In line with the company, a brand new wave of anti-government protests may very well be organised to coincide with the 2030 presidential elections. In parallel to those reported deliberate destabilisation operations, and to pressure deployments by the U.S. and Germany, Poland has invested notably closely it quickly modernising its air and floor forces, together with procuring giant numbers of South Korean K2 and American Abrams tanks, in addition to Korean Chunmoo rocket artillery and K9 howitzers, American HIMARS, Korean FA-50 fighters, and U.S. F-35 stealth fighters with superior penetrative capabilities. New belongings resembling K2s have continuously deployed close to Belarus’ borders, whereas the F-35 threatens to introduce a deep penetration strike functionality that’s notably threatening.
Belarus stays the one nation in Europe thought of outdoors the Western Bloc’s sphere of affect, and has not too long ago made unprecedented investments in quickly modernising its army capabilities with giant scale procurements predominantly from Russia. The accelerated modernisation of Belarusian forces seems to be a response to rising threats. The Defence Ministry has in any other case invested in acquiring each strategic and tactical nuclear strike capabilities by means of a nuclear sharing settlement with Russia from 2023, and in growing workouts with its strategic companions. Belarusian forces in September 2025 carried out Zapad army workouts with Russia, and 14 months prior in July hosted an unprecedented deployment of Chinese language floor forces for the primary main joint workouts between the 2 international locations. Belarus considerably enhanced its air defence capabilities primarily by procuring S-400 lengthy vary programs from Russia from 2022, and the longest ranged fighter sort in Europe the Su-30SM2.
The Belarusian Armed Forces’ capability to launch counter strikes has additionally been bolstered, and following the procurement of Iskander-M tactical ballistic missile programs, the Armed Forces in December 2025 December operationalised Oreshnik intermediate vary hypersonic ballistic missile programs. The native defence sector can also be persevering with to provide the Polonez lengthy vary rocket artillery system collectively with China, whereas choices to combine nuclear warheads onto the programs had been reported in August to be into account. Belarusian typical forces stay outmatched of their gear by the bigger portions of newer programs being deployed by NATO members, with Poland’s K2 tanks far outmatching and outnumbering up to date Soviet-built T-72s in Belarusian service. This has resulted in a powerful emphasis on uneven excessive affect programs such because the Oreshnik, Polonez and S-400.
