MULINO FIRING RANGE, Russia – Russian President Vladimir Putin saw a huge display of firepower produced by his military on Monday when he attended the end of what are believed to be the largest Russian war games held in Europe since the Cold War.
Joint exercises with Belarus, called Zapad, are held every four years and their main phase began last week, with the participation of tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks, planes and warships in western locations. of Russia and Belarus.
Zapad – which means “West” in Russian – aims to test the country’s ability to wage a major war with NATO on the western border. The exercise has its origins in the Cold War, but in recent years, as relations with the West have worsened, Putin has increased his scale, using them to illustrate restored Russian power.
Russia has claimed that this year’s exercises involve 200,000 troops, but most military analysts believe it is a significant exaggeration and the actual figure is likely to be closer to 50,000 and 100,000.
On Monday, Putin witnessed a major end to the exercises that took place at a shooting range near Nizhny Novgorod, a city about 300 kilometers from Moscow.
From a rostrum overlooking the Mulino Mountains, Putin watched the event through binoculars, while heavily armed snipers kept guard.
For 45 minutes, Russian troops unleashed a colossal reservoir, with howitzers, multiple rocket launchers and dozens of tanks and armored vehicles, while warplanes and helicopters flew in waves overhead.
In the exercise, the Russian-led force defended itself against a military man belonging to a notional enemy, called “the Westerners.” In addition to Russian and Belarusian troops, small contingents from India, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Armenia also participated.
The screen that Putin saw appeared noticeably larger than the one made in 2017, in the last Zapad exercises, and these exercises shook his nerves in Eastern Europe, amid overheated speculation that they could use to cover an impending Russian invasion.
This year’s exercises attracted far less media attention, despite the more tense political atmosphere in Belarus following mass protests against authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.
The collapse of peaceful protests by Lukashenko, with the support of Russia, has placed him in Moscow and him with European countries and the United States.
Since Lukashenko sought to rescue the Kremlin, there have been concerns that Putin will use this leverage to demand that he meet a long-standing Russian goal of integrating Belarus with Russia. Last week, as the exercises began, Putin and Lukashenko announced plans for significantly deeper economic integration, under the slogan “Two countries, one economy.”
With Lukashenko now relying on Russian support to stay in power, both sides are using the exercises to emphasize Moscow’s strong support for the Belarusian leader.
“It is in Minsk’s interest to invite a much larger Russian footprint as a show of support for the regime,” Michael Kofman, director of the Russian Studies Program at the Naval Analysis Center, wrote in an article for the site War on the Rocks website last week.
“Judging by the early deployments and the selection of the training camp, there will be a larger Russian contingent in Belarus and Russian troops will be much closer to the borders with Poland than during previous Zapad exercises,” Kofman said. .
The imagined scenario of the exercise simulated that Russia was helping Belarus to defend itself from an attack by three fictitious states, “Nyaris”, “Pomoria” and the “Polar Republic”, versions of Lithuania, Poland and a Scandinavian country until to disguised.
Lukashenko has claimed that protests against him are part of a planned invasion of Belarus by NATO countries, which has repeatedly made savage claims last year that Western forces were massed at the border.
This year’s Zapad exercises emerged in part to incorporate this scenario, including scripts where Western-backed “terrorists” caused instability, as a pretext for invasion.
Residents of Belarus, Poland and Lithuania have once again expressed their displeasure over the exercises this year. Both countries are already struggling with a migration crisis created by Lukashenko in connection with his support for the pro-democracy opposition. In recent months, European officials have accused Lukashenko of flying thousands of immigrants, mostly from Iraq, and pushing them across the border.
The exercises, while important for training, are also, in many ways, a campaign tool for Putin. Stephen Ganyard, a former deputy secretary of state and ABC News contributor, said the demonstrations of strength are “primarily for domestic consumption.”
Monday’s dramatic spectacle came just four days before Russia’s parliamentary elections.
Military experts have warned of accepting Russia’s claims about the size of the exercises, which they warn are intended in part to give an exaggerated impression of Russian military power.
“Russian military leaders are likely to expect Western media to report exaggerated figures, which help validate the magnitude and success of the exercise,” Kofman wrote.
NATO has also accused Russia of not formally declaring the actual number of troops involved. A 1990 agreement, the Vienna Document, obliges Russia to invite observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for exercises involving more than 13,000 troops. But despite its public statements that 200,000 are involved, Russia has evaded the rule by saying less than 13,000 soldiers are participating in each individual drill.
Russia has insisted that the exercises are completely defensive and that at gunpoint Russian commanders were careful to repeat that the exercises were not intended to be threatening.
“We didn’t want to worry anyone,” Colonel Alexander Zavasky, the commander of an air force drilling in Kaliningrad, told ABC News on Saturday. “It’s a planned exercise, so don’t worry.”