Russia May Send 100K Troops to NATO’s Borders

In this Aug. 2, 2017, photo, Russian paratroopers mark Paratroopers Day in Moscow’s Red Square. The Russian military says major war games, the Zapad (West) 2017 maneuvers, will not threaten anyone. Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

 

Russia showed off its growing naval strength last month ahead of huge land exercises on NATO state borders set to begin Thursday.

The exercises are part of President Vladimir Putin’s effort to demonstrate Russia’s full recovery from being a military basket case following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Russia’s Northern Fleet claimed to have sent about 50 ships, submarines and support vessels into the Barents and Baltic Seas in August on a series of anti-submarine, anti-mine and search-and-rescue operations, a Russian Navy spokesman told Russia’s Interfax news agency.

The 24,000-ton Kirov-class battle cruiser Pyotr Veliky, the flagship of the Northern Fleet, and the 564-foot Typhoon-class Dmitriy Donskoy, the world’s largest submarine, are believed to have participated in the exercises.

On Thursday, Russia and Belarus are to begin the not-so-subtly named Zapad (West) 17 exercises near the borders of the Baltic States, Poland and Ukraine.

According to a Zapad scenario released by Russian and Belarusian defense officials, the war games will be played out against the fictional Eastern European states of “Vesbaria, Lubenia, and Veishnoria,” which have combined to launch attacks intended to drive a wedge between Russia and Belarus.

Ahead of the exercises, Czech Gen. Petr Pavel, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, met last week in Azerbaijan with Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of Russia’s General Staff.

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Gerasimov and other Russian officials have insisted the war games will be limited to 12,700 troops — more would require the presence of NATO observers under international agreements.

However, Western officials have charged that about 100,000 troops could be expected to participate in Zapad to intimidate the West.

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen last week dismissed Russia’s headcount and said the actual number could be “over 100,000. I believe it is clear that we are witnessing yet another Russian demonstration of power and capabilities,” she said at a defense ministers’ meeting in Tallinn, Estonia.

The upcoming war games have been greeted with alarm in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said last week, “7,000 vehicles with soldiers and military equipment are nearing our borders and there are no guarantees they will go back to Russia after the maneuvers.”

The last Zapad exercise in 2013 involved “more than 75,000 men, who were engaged in simulated operations in the air, on land and at sea,” according to a report by The Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based research institute.

“With more military activities along our borders in the air, at land and at sea, the risk for incidents, accidents, miscalculations is increasing,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement. “Transparency is the best way to avoid those kinds of incidents, accidents.”

Full article: Russia May Send 100K Troops to NATO’s Borders (DefenseTech)