Putin tours Zapad-2025 exercises in uniform as Ukrainian officials report drone strike in Kharkiv

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Zapad-2025 military exercises on Tuesday wearing military fatigues and tactical glasses, while Ukrainian officials said Russian forces carried out a drone strike on a residential area of Kharkiv that injured four people.

Putin attended drills the Kremlin has described as defensive and said the exercises involved tens of thousands of personnel and hundreds of aircraft and ships. The Zapad-2025 manoeuvres, staged across multiple training grounds including sites in Belarus, have been presented by Moscow as a response to a hypothetical Western invasion and as an opportunity to test operational scenarios.

The Ukrainian prosecutor's office said a drone hit a residential neighbourhood in Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine, wounding four people and damaging apartment blocks. Video circulating on social media and cited by officials showed a missile-like object spiralling through the air before striking a building and causing a large fire. Prosecutors said an educational facility was also struck and that aerial footage showed a property missing much of its roof as firefighters inspected the scene.

Putin, 72, made his appearance at a training site in the Nizhny Novgorod region wearing an army uniform and what Russian media described as Strekoza tactical glasses. He thanked foreign observers and delegations taking part in the exercises, saying the drills had been useful both professionally and for restoring trust among participating countries. Kremlin statements quoted him as saying the exercises involved "100,000 servicemen, about 10,000 weapons and equipment systems," and cited figures for aircraft and naval vessels used in the manoeuvres.

Moscow has said 25 foreign delegations attended Zapad-2025 and has highlighted participation by tactical and strategic air units and naval assets. Western and regional officials view the exercises as a show of strength amid continuing war in Ukraine and rising tensions after a series of recent airspace incidents in eastern Europe.

Analysts and former military officers said the timing of the exercises, and the scale described by Moscow, are intended to send a message to NATO as well as to domestic audiences. "These drills are used to test different war-game scenarios," said Natia Seskuria, an international security expert and associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. She told reporters the exercises provide an opportunity to measure Western responses and to rehearse operations that, in previous years, have preceded Russian military actions.

Seskuria noted that Zapad drills have historically been planned years in advance and said Russia does not possess the same breadth of capabilities it had before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. "The scale is much more reduced. But it's also an opportunity for Russia to basically test different scenarios," she said.

Last week, several NATO countries reported incursions into their airspace by drones believed to be Russian. Between 19 and 23 drones entered Polish airspace on Sept. 9, NATO scrambled a multinational force of jets and shot some down, Polish authorities said. Romania accused Russia of a breach of its airspace on Sept. 13. Latvia reported a drone crash in its east, and Polish officials later described a civilian drone flown over their presidential palace as a provocation; two Belarusians were detained in connection with that incident, Poland said.

Former British Army officer Hamish de Bretton‑Gordon told the Daily Mail that Russia's recent moves will embolden Moscow if they are not met with a firmer NATO response. "NATO has suddenly woken up — or finally woken up," he said, adding that allies must demonstrate resolve to deter further actions. He and other commentators urged stronger steps, including shooting down incursions and imposing tighter restrictions on Russian aerial activity.

Poland's foreign minister and Ukrainian leaders have called for more tangible Western measures to protect both NATO territory and Ukrainian civilian populations. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly called for a no-fly zone over Ukraine and has frequently appeared in military fatigues at the front alongside troops; Putin's decision to wear a uniform during the exercises drew comparisons with Zelensky and revived debate over the optics of leadership during wartime.

Some commentators on Russian social media and elsewhere previously questioned the authenticity of Putin's appearances in uniform. After a March 2025 public showing in military attire, critics alleged the footage featured a body double; the Kremlin has dismissed such claims.

Western officials say they are closely monitoring both the exercises and the recent airspace incidents. They point to the historical role of large-scale drills in Moscow's strategic signalling and to the potential for provocative actions to test alliance cohesion without immediately escalating to open conflict.

Moscow framed Zapad-2025 as defensive and as a demonstration of interoperability with participating forces, while Western and regional analysts called attention to concurrent drone activity and to what they see as a pattern of probing actions. The interplay between large-scale exercises, incidents over allied airspace, and strikes inside Ukraine has heightened calls among some NATO members for clearer rules of engagement and more robust air-defence measures in the region.

Officials on all sides said they would continue to monitor developments closely. Ukrainian authorities promised to investigate the Kharkiv strike, while NATO countries reiterated commitments to collective defence and to measures intended to deter further incursions into allied airspace.