The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are preparing to conduct strategic West-2024 exercises in Belarus.

The Belarusian Gayun monitoring group reported on this.

According to the monitoring group, a Russian Armed Forces servicemen delegation paid a working visit to Minsk in early September.

One of the goals of the visit was to prepare for the joint strategic exercises of Belarus and Russia, West-2024.

In particular, there was a reconnaissance (visual study) of the locations of troops for the period of the exercise.

The last West exercise was held from September 10 to 15, 2021. The maneuvers were conducted at 14 training grounds located in Belarus and Russia. The exercise in Belarus involved 2,500 servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces.

From February 10 to February 20, 2022, the Republic of Belarus hosted Union Resolve 2022 unscheduled training exercises. Four days after they ended, Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.

On February 23, Militarnyi reported that in 2025, Belarus will host large-scale strategic exercises that may involve Russian troops.

On September 22-26, 2023, the Shield of the Union exercise was supposed to take place but was canceled.

As previously reported, Belarusian service personnel of the Polonez multiple launch rocket system are training at Russian training grounds.

On August 13, the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Belarus reported that units of the Belarusian Armed Forces had gone to Russia to conduct a field exercise.

The Belaruski Gayun monitoring group suggests that these are units of the 336th Rocket Artillery Brigade (military unit #12180) and the 465th Missile Brigade (military unit #61732), armed with Polonez-M MLRS and Iskander-M missile systems, respectively.