The Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko ordered a surprise verification of the combat readiness of his armed forces on Wednesday, a decision that coincided with the unannounced visit of CIA Director John Ratcliffe to Moscow, according to the Kyiv Post.
Alexander Volfovich, Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus, confirmed that a brigade will leave its permanent base to carry out tasks the details of which were not disclosed. «For now, we will not discuss them», Volfovich stated, specifying that the missions will depend on the decisions of the military command and the General Staff.
The exercise will place special emphasis on methods to engage a potential enemy, using "the experience of military conflicts in Ukraine and Iran" as a doctrinal reference, according to Volfovich himself. The declared objective is to verify whether Belarusian units can operate under real conditions of modern combat.
In response to the alarm generated by the announcement, Volfovich urged the public not to assume that "something extraordinary is happening."
The simultaneous presence of Ratcliffe in Moscow did not go unnoticed.
The CIA director arrived in the Russian capital on Tuesday for an unannounced visit — the first known visit by a head of that agency since William Burns met with Vladimir Putin in November 2021 — and the Kremlin confirmed that there were "contacts between intelligence services", although it denied that he met with the Russian president, who, according to spokesman Dmitri Peskov, was informed afterwards.
The Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources familiar with the matter, that the trip may have been linked to U.S. intelligence regarding Putin's potential upcoming moves.
According to that newspaper, Russian forces recently conducted mobilization preparation exercises in the Kaliningrad region and other areas, testing whether military infrastructure could receive, equip, and sustain new recruits. Washington's intelligence has also reportedly gathered indications that Putin may be looking to test NATO's resolve.
The former Deputy Director of National Intelligence of the United States, Beth Sanner, interpreted Ratcliffe's visit as a direct warning to Moscow: "The aim may have been to say: we know what you are planning, and you better not go through with it."
The verification this Wednesday is the third surprise inspection conducted by the Belarusian army so far this year, following those carried out in January and February 2026.
It occurs at a time of growing militarization of Belarus: at the beginning of August, the commander of the Special Operations Forces, Alexander Ilyukevich, announced the formation of a new airborne assault brigade in the Gomel region, about forty kilometers from the Ukrainian border, with a permanent base planned for 2027.
The WSJ had previously reported that Putin was pressuring Lukashenko to open a new front against Ukraine and that Moscow was considering using Belarusian territory for operations against NATO states, including drone launches.
Belarus already allowed Russia to use its territory as a launch platform during the initial invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has hosted Russian tactical nuclear weapons since 2023. In May 2026, both countries conducted joint maneuvers focused on the use of those nuclear weapons.
The Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelensky has warned about the construction of Belarusian military infrastructure at the border as a potential threat, while French president Emmanuel Macron alerted Lukashenko, in a phone call held in May, about the risks of Belarus being drawn into the conflict.
Lukashenko, for his part, admitted in June that Belarus is "very vulnerable militarily" and has reiterated that the country would only go to war if it suffered a direct aggression.
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