EDF colonel: Russian troops used in Zapad 2025 have already relocated
Russian troops brought close to the Baltic states for the large-scale Exercise Zapad have already begun moving back to their permanent locations, Colonel Ants Kiviselg, head of the Estonian Defense Forces Intelligence Center, said on Friday.
Speaking at the regular Friday Ministry of Defense press conference, Kiviselg said: "We have ascertained that Russia has started relocating troops back after the exercise, and nothing will be left in this region."
Zapad 2025, on a smaller scale than its predecessors, ran September 12–16 in locations primarily in eastern Belarus and in adjacent areas of the Russian Federation.
That exercise was smaller compared to previous similar exercises, as Estonian military intelligence had earlier also stated, and was likely mostly down to so many Russian forces being tied down in its stalled invasion of Ukraine. "We also predicted this, that they do not have the strength to conduct a larger exercise alongside waging war in Ukraine," Kiviselg noted.
Despite this, all the elements which Russia defines as mandatory for Zapad were carried out in the exercise, though again on a smaller scale, with nothing further special to highlight, Kiviselg added.
According to Kiviselg, the greatest difficulty in the exercise was for the Russian navy and air force, and the most notable was the Baltic Fleet corvette's missile strike against a target, the execution of which required cooperation between different branches of the armed forces.
In concluding, Kiviselg reiterated that the troops brought into the region for Zapad have begun moving back to their permanent locations.
Exercise Zapad ("West") was held for the first time since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. This raised security concerns in countries neighboring Belarus, such as Lithuania and Latvia, as the maneuvers involve the concentration and heightened readiness of a large number of troops.
Russia used Zapad 2021 to deploy and concentrate large numbers of personnel and materiel late that year and on the eve of the invasion. Despite this, an attempt to capture Kyiv failed.
The Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service (Välisluureamet) has also repeatedly pointed out in its yearbooks the increased security risks in this region, associated with the Zapad exercises.
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Editor: Mait Ots, Andrew Whyte
