Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu gave a rare lengthy interview to the popular paper
Moskovsky Komsomolets—the
first in seven years, since being appointed to head the Ministry of
Defense in November 2012.
Speaking with the news outlet, Shoigu lauded
his unparalleled achievements in restoring Russia’s military might after
decades of decay and neglect. According to Shoigu, Western animosity
toward Russia did not materialize “five years ago [in response to
Russia’s takeover of Crimea],” but began much earlier. The West made a
serious strategic mistake, Shoigu implied, by exposing its true
intentions too early: “If they continued to play nice as with [former
Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev, if they would not have moved NATO [the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization] westward, [would have] refrained
from encroaching on Russia’s ‘near abroad’ and interfering in our
internal affairs […] then in the end they would have achieved their
designated goal to destroy and enslave Russia the same way as with the
former Soviet republics and Central European nations.” But under
President Vladimir Putin, Russia awoke and began pushing back,
rebuilding its military with great sacrifice to resist Western
domination and managing to build a multipolar world, Shoigu claimed (
Moskovsky Komsomolets, September 22).
Russia is being accused of running “hybrid wars,” but, Shoigu
insisted, it is the West that is the true perpetrator, devising
strategies to overthrow legal state authorities under the pretext of
“promoting democracy” and leaving behind a trail of chaos and
destruction in Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya and
Venezuela. Military chiefs from Russia and the United States
successfully talk to each other to prevent dangerous incidents in Syria;
and the Russian military has similar contacts with Israel and Turkey.
It would be good for Washington and Moscow to have direct contacts at
the defense minister level, Shoigu suggested, but this is hampered by
the constant change and dismissal of US Secretaries Defense in the
Donald Trump administration. Russia must be strong militarily; and even
though its defense spending is much smaller than that of the US, it is
much more effective, Shoigu asserted. At the same time, he denounced
Putin’s liberal economic advisors for constantly advocating defense
spending cuts. The budget for 2020 and a three-year budget plan until
2022 are being hammered out today in the government and the Kremlin.
Shoigu’s decision to go public with a big interview in
Moskovsky Komsomolets is almost certainly a salvo in this budget allocation fight (
Moskovsky Komsomolets, September 22).
In the perpetual confrontation with the West, Russia needs allies. On
September 16, the massive Tsentr 2019 strategic war games commenced,
including contingents from China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Pakistan and India.
The exercise, which concluded on September 21,
involved some 128,000 military personnel, 20,000 pieces of heavy
equipment, 600 aircraft and 15 warships—mostly Russian. The main task
before the participating troops was to prepare to defend former Soviet
Central Asia against an Islamist insurrection. Similar exercises
including Russian, Chinese and local Eurasian contingents were held
previously within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO), but they were much smaller in scope and more clearly
anti-terrorist in nature. Tsentr 2019, meanwhile, effectively simulated a
peer-to-peer confrontation with a fictitious enemy state ‘located in
the southwest” that supported an insurgency in Central Asia, eventually
leading to an overall armed conflict or regional war (see
EDM,
September 25).
The Chinse People’s Liberation Army (PLA) contingent in
Tsentr 2019 featured more than 20 warplanes, including heavy H-6k
nuclear-capable bombers, which dropped live ordinance together with
Russian jets. Some 70 Russian large military transport Il-76s dropped
around 2,000 paratroopers with heavy equipment in the first such Russian
mass parachute operation since the 1980s (
Militarynews.ru,
September 20). Two armored airborne battle vehicles crashed during the
drop because of parachute failures, but no casualties were reported (
Militarynews.ru, September 22).
Shoigu and his Chinese counterpart, General Wei Fenghe, declared Tsentr
2019 a resounding success, demonstrating high levels of Sino-Russian
“shoulder to shoulder” cooperation and exchanged military experience (
Militarynews.ru,
September 20). Li Zhanshu, a member of China’s Politburo Standing
Committee (the country’s top decision-making body) and head of the
national legislature, subsequently met with Putin in Moscow and
declared, “The US is double deterring China and Russia and attempting to
separate us, but we understand their game and will not succumb. We will
support each other’s national interests and security” (
Interfax, September 25).
Read complete report at: Russia Completes Massive Tsentr 2019 War Games With Enhanced Chinese Participation - Jamestown
