00:00patrols like these will be far more frequent than usual over the coming days these soldiers have
00:08received extra training to prepare for potential border transgressions during the first russian
00:14belarusian military drills since the start of the war in ukraine in 2022 now russia is much
00:22more seriously taken as a possible uh aggressor well we are preparing for a very broad range of
00:31provocations those might be use of migrants aggressive actions at the at the border against
00:38border guards by migrants when the migrants are being instructed by belarusian to be very aggressive
00:44to use different different tools to attack uh border guards those might be also use of drones
00:52like drills of the past thousands of russian and belarusian soldiers will test military equipment
00:58such as tanks drones and machine guns but this time they'll also be trained to use russia's new
01:05hypersonic nuclear capable ballistic missile rashnik the exercises will bring back painful memories
01:13for many lithuanians lithuania knows firsthand what a russian invasion would mean until 1991
01:21the country was under russian occupation as part of the soviet union
01:27russia's invasion of ukraine has raised fears lithuania could be next the country has more than
01:35doubled its defense spending since 2021 to over five percent of gdp next year experts say the upcoming
01:43drills could also raise the threat level in the long run russia perceives us as countries more as
01:50territories that should be under kremlin's direct or indirect control what we are going to be
01:56looking for is certainly whether those troops that are going to be in belarus or around belarus
02:03are going to be staying there after the exercise whether russia is really increasing its
02:08presence on the belarusian soil including the infrastructure and possibly preparing for some scenarios
02:15in two five seven or ten years the inhabitants of these lithuanian villages next to the border
02:21are somehow used to such drills that have been happening regularly since 2009 but to some of them
02:29this year's exercises feel more frightening than ever we all fear that this war will soon come to us
02:38us we are afraid really afraid nothing bad has happened where we are it's nice and peaceful here with russia
02:48clearly showing an expansionist agenda these fears are unlikely to dissipate anytime soon fears that this
02:56border could at some point become lithuania's first line of defense
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