MINSK, Belarus (AFP) — A separatist republic invented by the Russian and Belarusian militaries to serve as a fictitious foe in upcoming war games has sparked a wave of tongue-in-cheek support online and citizenship applications.

Minsk said the joint Zapad-2017 drills will role play a conflict with a made-up rebel region called Veishnoria, supposedly located in western Belarus and backed by neighbouring European nations.

The major exercises, scheduled for September 14-20, have set nerves jangling among NATO members in Eastern Europe, jolted by fears of an increasingly aggressive Russia.

But in Belarus the reaction to the make-believe insurgent region has been more one of gleeful mockery, with thousands of locals jokingly applying for citizenship.

The fictional rogue state is in a part of the ex-Soviet country that has many ethnic Poles and is majority-Catholic. In 1994, the region did not support the long-ruling President Alexander Lukashenko in elections.

Belarusians have set up fake accounts for the rebellious state’s foreign ministry and created a page on Wikipedia describing it as a nation where one of the main religions is Pastafarianism.

Veishnoria’s foreign ministry Twitter account announced it is accepting citizenship applications and some three thousand people have since applied via a separate website.

“Veishnoria is a diplomatic country without Lukashenko, without Russian troops, and which is friends with its western neighbours,” according to an “official statement” posted by the fake Twitter account.

The name of the fantasy state is apparently based on Lithuanian name Vaisnoras, or ‘hospitable’, according to Belarusian media.

Political analyst Pavel Usov said that the outpouring of interest in the fictional country was down to a yearning among opponents to escape the stifling, Soviet-style rule of Lukashenko.

“Veishnoria for Belarusians is the dream of a normal country,” he wrote on Facebook.

The Zapad-2017 exercises have rattled the West, with Lithuania claiming that as many as 100,000 troops could attend and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg calling for transparency.

Russia has called them “purely defensive” and said only 12,700 soldiers are set to take part.

Relations between Moscow and the West have plunged to their lowest point since the cold war over Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and support for a separatist rebellion in the country.