Russia is readying this week for war games that Western security
officials see as a muscular display of firepower along NATO’s most
vulnerable region.
The exercises will show off a military that has been transformed under President Vladimir Putin into an effective force that has deployed to Syria and Ukraine in recent years. The official Thursday start — Western observers say the deployments started weeks ago — comes as relations with the West scrape all-time lows.
Moscow has insisted that the exercises will rehearse a strictly defensive scenario and will involve no more than 12,700 troops, just below the level that would require Russia to allow NATO observers under international agreements.
The chief of the Russian general staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, said last week that the war games were “not aimed against any third country.”
Read more: Fear and confidence in the face of Russian war games - The Washington Post
The exercises will show off a military that has been transformed under President Vladimir Putin into an effective force that has deployed to Syria and Ukraine in recent years. The official Thursday start — Western observers say the deployments started weeks ago — comes as relations with the West scrape all-time lows.
Moscow has insisted that the exercises will rehearse a strictly defensive scenario and will involve no more than 12,700 troops, just below the level that would require Russia to allow NATO observers under international agreements.
The chief of the Russian general staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, said last week that the war games were “not aimed against any third country.”
Read more: Fear and confidence in the face of Russian war games - The Washington Post
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