Russia will extend its military drills with Belarus involving some 30,000 troops near Ukraine’s border, the government in Minsk said, citing an uptick in violence in eastern Ukraine as Moscow’s standoff with the West over the future of Eastern Europe deepens.

       The exercises had been scheduled to wind down this weekend, but Belarus said Sunday they would continue indefinitely after Russian-backed forces accused Ukraine of shelling civilian areas in territories they control. Western officials have backed Kyiv’s assertion that the claims are part of an operation aimed at providing a pretext for a Russian-led attack.

       Countries bordering Belarus have been “pumped with modern weaponry," Belarus’s Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said. Europe is being pushed toward war, he added, and “has begun to smell strongly of gunpowder."

       Russia’s Defense Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but Yuri Shvytkin, deputy head of the Russian State Duma’s defense committee, told Russian news agency Interfax on Sunday that the aim of extending military drills is “to prevent provocative actions by the Armed Forces of Ukraine against our country and Belarus."

       Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said the extension of Russia’s military drills in Belarus was expected.

       “We ought to be ready to resist powerful pressure in the coming period. The enemy intends to destabilize Ukraine from within, to scare us and force us into capitulation. But we will stand firm," he said.

       The joint Russia-Belarus military exercises launched on Feb. 10 were slated to end on Sunday and formed part of a larger Russian buildup around Ukraine that Western officials say involves up to 190,000 service members.

       Russia had repeatedly said it intends to pull the troops back once the drills are over, but intensifying fighting in eastern Ukraine this week has prompted claims from Moscow that Ukraine is readying a military offensive to retake territory from Russian-backed rebels. The separatists seized swaths of the country’s east in an armed conflict that started in 2014 and has continued ever since, claiming more than 14,000 lives.

       On Sunday, Russia’s Federal Security Service, which controls the country’s borders, said more than 30,000 residents from the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics in the Donbas area had crossed to Russia’s neighboring Rostov region since the start of a mass evacuation of residents announced by authorities in the Russian-controlled areas on Friday. In Russia, the Rostov and Voronezh regions, which border Ukraine, announced states of emergency, citing the influx of people.

       Ukrainian military spokesman Dmytro Lutsyuk said on Sunday afternoon that 20 instances of artillery fire by Russian-led forces had been recorded in the space of 24 hours, and that one service member had been wounded and taken to a hospital with shrapnel wounds. Mr. Lutsyuk added that more than 860 residents of the breakaway republics had entered through a border crossing with Ukraine since Saturday.

       Keeping thousands of Russian troops in Belarus would solidify Russia’s hold over its post-Soviet ally, whose authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, sought Mr. Putin’s support during a massive wave of protests against his disputed re-election in August 2020 amid opposition allegations of fraud. Moscow has shored up Mr. Lukashenko’s regime financially and militarily and now stands to benefit as Mr. Lukashenko backs Russia’s line on Ukraine as Russia supported his crackdown on opposition to his rule.

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       The lingering presence of Russian troops in Belarus would also mark a significant shift in the countries’ historical relationship. Mr. Lukashenko has long been one of Mr. Putin’s staunchest allies but has so far resisted attempts to circumscribe Belarus’s autonomy and been reluctant to embrace a long-term Russian military presence in his country.

       Alongside the exercises in Belarus, Russia has also been conducting large-scale naval maneuvers on the Black and Azov Seas, with warships in unprecedented numbers from Russia’s Baltic, Black Sea and Northern Fleets.

       Russia previously said these naval drills would conclude Saturday night. While the warships and support vessels have collapsed their perimeter, they remain in the area.

       “The exercises should have ended last night," said Andrii Ryzhenko, a retired Ukrainian navy captain now with the Center for Defense Strategies, a Kyiv-based think tank. “But there is no sign that they are wrapping up. Particularly, our concern is landing ships."

       On Friday, six amphibious ships from Russia’s Baltic and Northern Fleets repositioned near the port of Chornomorske, on Crimea’s western cape, roughly 40 miles from the coastline of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, according to Andrii Klymenko, a defense and maritime analyst with the Black Sea Institute of Strategic Studies, a Ukrainian think tank. Supporting the landing craft are a corvette, a missile boat, a minesweeper and rescue tugs, Mr. Klymenko said.

       Russia announced earlier this month that naval exercises near the Crimean coast would continue through March 11.

       Despite limited live-fire drills broadcast on Russian state-owned TV, Ukrainian analysts and former military officials said the Russian warships didn’t engage in large-scale maneuvers in the past week and remained mostly stationary. The lack of activity relative to previous Russian exercises on the Black Sea left Ukrainian officials to speculate about Russian intentions.

       The drills’ impact on Ukraine’s vital commercial shipping remained limited. Last week, Russia restricted access to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, leaving a ribbon of navigable waters between the live-fire area and the Ukrainian coastline. These shipping lanes from Odessa to the Bosporus are now open, Mr. Klymenko said.

       Port operators in Odessa said commercial shipping continued uninterrupted. Only one ship, from Israeli container shipper ZIM, was known to have canceled an Odessa port call over concern for the naval exercises.

       “All our ports are open for shipping," Yuriy Vaskov, Ukraine’s deputy minister of infrastructure, who is responsible for maritime issues. “All the vessels can safely pass to Ukrainian ports or from Ukrainian ports."

       The shipping corridor from Odessa to the Georgian ports of Batumi and Poti remains closed by Russia warships, however, Mr. Klymenko said.

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