Polish troops marching after the Justice Sword 21 exercise in Romania, May 11, 2021 (AP)

Ruslan Kosygin, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Belarusian Armed Forces, announced today, Thursday, NATO has doubled its forces in Eastern Europe to form strike groups on the borders of Belarus and Russia, noting that the West is preparing to carry out military operations in the eastern operating zone.

"The collective West has intensified its activities to increase military formations in Eastern and Southeast Europe," Kosygin added in a video statement posted on the Belarusian Ministry of Defense's Telegram channel.

“At the same time, a significant number of the coalition troops and equipment were transferred from the continental United States, and the coalition now has a personnel of about 37.5 thousand people, not to mention about 24.5 thousand foreign mercenaries equipped with modern offensive weapons stationed in Poland and the Baltic States.”

The top military figure went on to say that the forces on the Russian-Belarusian border can be used to form attack groups in a very short period of time.

"The multinational exercise DEFENDER-Europe 22 is currently taking place on the ground and in the air over Central and Eastern European countries not to mention Poland and the Baltic states,” he said.

He concluded that preparations are underway for combat operations toward the east of Europe.

The Polish Defense Ministry has lately stated that 18,000 troops took part in the Defender Europe 2022 (DE22) and Swift Response 2022 (SR22) military exercises held on the lands of nine European countries as of May 1.