Belarus Weekly: Russia, Belarus confirm Zapad-2025 joint military drills in September

After 3 years of full-scale war, EU imposes sanctions on Belarus' Integral micro-electronics producer for supplying Russia with microchips for its missiles.

Russia, Belarus confirm they will hold Zapad-2025 joint military drills in September.

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko extends the power of local authorities allowing them to approve heads of private companies.

Belarusian journalist Ihar Ilyash goes on trial for ‘extremist’ interviews. PEN International calls for the release of Belarusian-Polish journalist Andrzej Poczobut.

EU sanctions Belarusian supplier of microchips for Russian missiles

The European Council imposed restrictions on Integral, a Belarusian micro-electronics producer supplying the Russian military, under the European Union’s 16th sanctions package, which was adopted on Feb. 24 – three years since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Belarus, a staunch ally of the Kremlin, has not sent its own troops to the battlefield, but allowed the Russian military to use its territory and infrastructure extensively when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It has also helped Russia circumvent sanctions.

The latest EU package imposes sanctions on JSC Integral, which makes semiconductors that were found as part of the wreckage of Russian missiles such as the R-37, Kh-59M2A, S-300, Kh-101, and Iskander, according to earlier media reports.

JSC Integral cooperates with Russian defense sector firms Ulyanovsk Instrument Design Bureau and Radar MMS, and has received $350 million in investment from Russia.

Ukrainian flags fly in front of the Berlaymont, the EU Commission headquarters, for the 3rd anniversary of the large scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia on Feb. 24, 2025 in Brussels, Belgium. (Thierry Monasse/Getty Images)

Integral has increased its profits fortyfold since 2021, reporting $50 million in profits in 2023 – despite being under U.S. sanctions.

The new EU measures also block Belarusian citizens’ access to European crypto-asset platforms to prevent sanction circumvention. Belarusian nationals without valid European residence permits can no longer hold crypto-asset wallets, and are barred from managing positions in crypto-exchange platforms.

Other provisions of the 16th sanction package for Belarus mirror trade restrictions already imposed by the EU on Russia.

“With talks underway to end Russia’s aggression, we must put Ukraine in the strongest possible position, and sanctions provide leverage,” said Kaja Kallas, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

The new sanction package, adopted on the third anniversary of the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, also targets the Russian shadow fleet of vessels used to circumvent the oil price cap mechanism, support Russia’s energy sector, and transport military equipment or stolen Ukrainian grain.

In addition, restrictions were imposed on 13 regional banks and 53 trade entities directly supporting the Russian defense sector as the Kremlin wages its war of aggression against Ukraine.

The council also suspended broadcasting licenses for a range of Russia-controlled media outlets.

Russia-Belarus military drills officially confirmed for September

Russia and Belarus will hold a major military exercise, titled Zapad-2025, in mid-September this year, Belarusian state-owned news agency Belta reported on Feb. 20, officially confirming the date for the first time.

Military allies Russia and Belarus have been conducting the Zapad ("West" in Russian) strategic drills every two years since 2009. The exercises in 2025 were announced in October 2024, though no dates were given.

Belarus will host 13,000 Russian troops during Zapad 2025, Belta reports, citing the head of the Department of International Military Cooperation of the Belarusian Defense Ministry, Valery Revenka. Revenka claimed that Belarus is "developing its position" regarding the invitations for OSCE member states to observe the drills, and also declared Belarus's readiness to conduct a mutual military inspection with Poland of the areas within 80 kilometers of their mutual border.

The drills come amid growing concern over a potential buildup of Russian troops in Belarus in 2025. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed Russia plans to deploy 15 divisions, totaling 100,000 to 150,000 troops, primarily in Belarus in preparation for a major military escalation.

However, the Lithuanian Armed Forces press office said on Feb. 25 that no redeployment of Russian forces has been detected so far.  

"At the moment, military intelligence is monitoring Russia's actions in Ukraine, and there is no indication that forces are being redeployed closer to Lithuania,” a statement from the Lithuanian Armed Forces reads. “The situation in Belarus remains unchanged: intensive but stable military training," the statement says.

The previous Zapad strategic exercises were held in 2021, and involved 200,000 Russian and Belarusian troops.

The exercise was followed by another military drill, "Union Resolve 2022," which was used to disguise the buildup of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border in late 2021 ahead of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Local committees in Belarus granted authority to approve appointments of heads of private companies

Longtime Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko signed a decree on Feb. 21 granting district and city executive committee chairs the right to approve the heads of organizations operating in the territories they govern, including those under private ownership, Lukashenko’s press office reported.

Lukashenko first proposed allowing local authorities to govern privately owned companies in November 2024. His administration confirmed on Feb. 6 that a decree was in being drafted, targeting major employers while exempting small businesses.

The decree foresees a wholesale expansion of the powers of local authorities. It will enter into effect on March 1.  

The decree stipulates that local executive committees are to draw up a list of firms operating under their jurisdiction, excluding organizations that are the sole owners of their property.

The chairmen of local committees would then have a say in the appointment of the heads of organizations, deputy heads of organizations managing communal property in the area, and key specialists in agricultural organizations on the list.

It remains unclear how local authorities will execute the decree. In 2024, payments from organizations accounted for 94.1% of all tax revenues in Belarus, with privately owned companies contributing 55.7%.

Belarusian entrepreneur and economic analyst Aliaksandr Knyrovich sees the decree as an attempt by the government to control private enterprises, but described it as an unfeasible formality – “a monarchic whim that the villeins will try to pretend to fulfill.”

“Two economies have been formed in Belarus: the one that creates value – private business – and the one that devours it,” Knyrovich told the Kyiv Independent. The perceived grandeur of Belarus’s state-run economy is an “optical illusion,” he said, adding that private firms are responsible for 52% of investment. The analyst said such attempts to control private businesses were due to the economic shortcomings in the Russian market of Lukashenko’s state-run enterprises, and the administration's desire to stop the outflow of the workforce from the regions.

According to Knyrovich, the government already has enough mechanisms to control private firms – virtually non-stop inspections leading to fines or criminal cases. In dire scenarios, prison terms for the leadership are used as a pretext to nationalize an enterprise. However, the analyst said he does not expect the decree to lead to mass nationalization in Belarus.

This is not the first non-market economic intervention by Lukashenko’s government. In October 2022, on Lukashenko’s orders, the government imposed sweeping price caps on consumer goods to stop rising prices.

The restrictions have been slightly relaxed since then, but government control over consumer prices remains in place, artificially suppressing inflation that could otherwise reach 10-11% in 2024 instead of 5.5%, according to economists at BEROC – the country’s leading market economics think tank.

Journalist goes on trial in Belarus over interviews deemed to be ‘extremist’

Belarusian journalist and co-author of the book “Belarusian Donbas,” Ihar Ilyash, was put on trial on Feb. 21 on charges of discrediting Belarus and aiding “extremist activities,” the Viasna Human Rights Center has reported.

Formerly a journalist for the Polish-funded satellite TV channel Belsat, Ilyash was detained in late October 2024 over interviews he gave to media that have been designated as extremists by Belarusian authorities. If found guilty, he faces up to three and five years of imprisonment.

European and British diplomats, including representatives of Austria, Belgium, Germany, the Czech Republic, Finland, Italy, Slovakia, the Netherlands, and Sweden, gathered at the Minsk City Court building in a show of solidarity with the political prisoner.

“Today, we came to support Ihar Ilyash,” the German Embassy said in a statement.

"There is a lawsuit against him because of his statements about the arrest of his wife, Katerina Bahvalova, for political reasons, and about Belarus’s participation in Russia’s illegal war of conquest against Ukraine. The right to freedom of speech and expression must be respected.”

Together with his wife, Belsat correspondent Katerina Bahvalova, Ilyash co-authored “Belarusian Donbas,” a book documenting Belarus’s involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine since 2014. Published in Kyiv in 2020, the book was slapped with an “extremist” label in Belarus in March 2021.

Despite the threat of his arrest, Ilyash opted to stay in Belarus to support his wife. Bahvalova, detained in November 2020 as she was covering a protest rally in Minsk, was among the first Belarusian journalists jailed for their work. When she had almost served her term in full, she was charged with treason and sentenced to another eight years in prison.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders says there are 39 journalists and five media workers among Belarus’s 1,220 political prisoners. Around 35 independent media outlets and 33 individuals have been designated as extremists in Belarus, and 12 journalists have been included on the state list of “terrorists,” according to a Belarusian Association of Journalists report.

Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Belarus was considered Europe’s most dangerous country for journalists.

PEN International calls for release of Belarusian-Polish political prisoner Andrzej Poczobut

Worldwide association of writers PEN International on Feb. 24 called for the release of Andrzej Poczobut, a Polish-Belarusian activist and correspondent for Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, who was sentenced to eight years in prison in Belarus in 2023 on charges of “encouraging actions aimed at harming national security.”

PEN International, which advocates freedom of expression worldwide, claimed that Poczobut’s case was emblematic of the type of oppression experienced by writers and journalists who speak up for the rights of oppressed minorities.

“Locked away, deprived of the very freedoms he seeks to protect, his persecution is a chilling reminder of the lengths to which the Belarusian authorities will go to crush dissent,” Urtzi Urrutikoetxea, the Chair of the Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee of PEN International, said in a statement.

A banner with a picture of Belarusian-Polish journalist, Andrzej Poczobut, a political prisoner of Alexander Lukashenko's regime, is seen in the center of Bialystok, Poland on Jan. 21, 2023. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Poland dismisses Poczobut’s charges as politically motivated and has made his release one of three conditions for normalizing relations with Belarus. The rift between Poland and Belarus has grown over the past five years, particularly after the 2020 Belarusian election crisis, during which Poland supported the Belarusian opposition. Relations further soured due to Belarus’s involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine and its fomenting of a migration crisis on the borders of the European Union.

The release of political prisoners has been the subject of recent discussions between the U.S. and Belarus, with the United States potentially providing sanctions relief in return for the release of those kept captive in Belarus on politically motivated charges, the New York Times reported last week.

However, even as Belarus has been negotiating with Washington, and “pardoning” around 260 political prisoners in small batches in recent months, human rights organizations have said that at the same time even more individuals became political prisoners.