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It's 1,301 days since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
And Vitaly,
we've been watching over the past few days these joint military drills between Russia and Belarus.
Yes, called Zapod or West.
They take place regularly or semi regularly right on the eastern flank of NATO and the EU and the message is normally that of saber rattling and you know be afraid of us this time there were unexpected guests at the exercise.
Guests from the US military,
the Belarusian Defense Ministry published a video where the Belarusian Defense Minister,
Viktor Hrenin,
shakes the hand of the US military attaché, Brian Schupp,
and says that they will be able to see anything they like during the exercises.
And the timing is, of course, interesting.
It's a time of continuing tensions between Russia and its closest ally Belarus and the Western world and Ukraine on the other hand and Donald Trump is clearly trying to build bridges.
and reach out to the likes of Alexander Lukashenko,
the one and only leader of Belarus since its independence.
Yeah,
and of course it's less than a week after Poland we saw shot down those Russian drones that crossed into its airspace.
Some from Belarus.
Yes, so interesting timing.
So Steve Rosenberg, our Russian editor, was also there.