Russian President Putin is touring a Leningrad region military range where Belarusian troops are being hosted for the Zapad 2017 drills – criticized by some neighboring countries despite Moscow and Minsk’s transparency and invitations given to observers.
The exercises began last week at several locations in Russia and Belarus and will be conducted until Wednesday. Russia sent around 3,000 troops to neighboring Belarus, where they are training at six locations along with 7,000 soldiers and officers of the host nation. Russia welcomed Belarusian troops at three sites, including the Luzhsky range in Leningrad region.
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Less than 13,000 troops are taking part in the exercise in total, according to figures from the defense ministries of Russia and Belarus. Around 70 aircraft, 680 armored vehicles, including 250 tanks, 200 artillery guns, and 10 warships have been deployed by the two nations.
The two nations are working on coordination and interoperability of its troops in joint operations. Both stressed that the drill is meant to be purely defensive. They also invited some 90 foreign observers from 60 countries to monitor the exercise.
War games such as Zapad 2017 are conducted by Russia and Belarus on a regular basis, and the ongoing exercise is among the bigger events. In the months prior to the launch of the drills, several countries, including Poland and the three Baltic states, were strongly critical, calling them a threat to their national security.
Officials in the countries claimed that Russia would send more troops to Belarus than it said it would and that the entire event may be a cover-up for a land grab.
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The Russian Foreign Ministry blasted critics of the drills in the media, accusing them of fearmongering.
“The hype was fanned up artificially and is definitely meant to convince the Western public that the cost of deploying additional forward military presence in Poland and the Baltics and increased NATO military activity is justified,” it said in a statement in August. “Remarkably, it is these actions that lead to increased military tension in Europe, which Western ‘pen and microphone warriors’ lament so much.”
NATO launched massive parallel military exercises in Sweden involving 20,000 troops – the largest in the country in 23 years – which was touted as deterrence to potential Russian aggression.
So far, there has been no sign of anything out of order happening at Zapad 2017.
