Belarus Sends Troops to Russia for Training to Gain ‘Modern Conflict Experience’

Belarus is deploying military personnel to Russia for advanced training, to prepare them to become instructors on their return, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense announced.

According to the official statement, the servicemen were selected from various units of the Belarusian Armed Forces and are undergoing training at the 333rd Combat Training Center, located near Mulino in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region.

The training course, which covers firearms, tactics, medical instruction, and more, is based on lessons drawn from “modern armed conflicts” – likely, a reference to Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.

Upon completion, the Belarusian trainees will return to Belarus to serve as instructors, to help train its own personnel.

The 333rd center, which integrates traditional field exercises with computer-based simulators for armored vehicle crews, was itself struck by a Ukrainian drone attack in March. 

A Ukrainian Liutyi drone hit the facility on March 14, damaging one of the buildings that housed interactive firing ranges and injuring Russian troops.

The Belarusian training deployment follows comments from President Alexander Lukashenko in early March, when he ordered defense officials to coordinate training missions to Russia focused on drone warfare. The directive came after he met a Russian delegation at an exhibition of unmanned aerial systems in Minsk.

Lukashenko asked Russian officials to propose a suitable location for the joint training, leading to the selection of the Mulino-based facility.