The Belarusian armed forces began the first publicly known training exercises with exiled Russian Wagner fighters on Thursday.
A video shared by the Belarusian Defense Ministry showed members of its special operations forces and masked men in military gear with Wagner patches performing combat duties at a training facility.
“We try to absorb everything like a sponge, analyze and deploy [Wagner’s training] in practice in the future,” said an anonymous Belarusian soldier, quoted in a Defense Ministry statement.
The four-day drills are taking place at military training grounds in Brest, about three kilometers from Belarus’ western border with Poland, a member of both NATO and the EU.
Poland’s Defense Ministry, which has moved more than 1,000 troops to its eastern border amid reports of Wagner’s deployment to Belarus, said Thursday, he was “ready for any scenario”.
The Kremlin has expressed concern about “hostile” Polish army reinforcements near the border with Belarus.
The Belarusian Defense Ministry said the training exercises with Wagner were aimed at improving the country’s military security “in the current geopolitical situation”.
Belarus, a close ally of Moscow, served as the staging ground for Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has described Wagner’s combat experience in Ukraine – which culminated in the costly capture of Bakhmut – as “invaluable”.
Lukashenko last month arranged Wagner’s exile to Belarus in return for the Kremlin dropping criminal mutiny charges against its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.