The many incidents with the Russian military over the last few weeks are not a coincidence. It looks like a prelude to intervention in Belarus.
Belarus
Belarus acquires more air defense missiles
Belarus has ordered a new battery of surface-to-air Tor-M2 missiles (NATO name SA-15 Gauntlet), bringing the number to a total of five batteries, according to the Russian defense blog bmpd. The first battery was acquired in 2011, and since then the arsenal has grown steadily with the goal to end at ten batteries in 2020. […]
Lithuanian borders violated by Russia and Belarus in September
You would expect border guards to know where the border is. Or at least you would think that border guards had enough respect for the concept of a border to keep a safe margin if they are in doubt. But nevertheless there were two cases in September where border guards entered illegally into Lithuania. The […]
Zapad was not a test for the West
Igor Fedyk tries to derive some conclusions about the just finished Zapad 2017 exercise in this piece called Zapad 2017: A Test for the West for Jamestown.org. I think some of his points are somewhat sensationalistic, though, and Fedyk partly falls into the trap of confusing the nature of warfare with sinister intentions on behalf […]
Lukashenko not allowed in Russia during Zapad 2017
Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko will not visit the Russian part of exercise Zapad 2017. Kommersant.ru reports that Lukashenko was scheduled to appear at training sites in Russia alongside Vladimir Putin but for unknown reasons the plans have changed. Putin may still show up to spectate the exercise in Russia but Lukashenko will only observe the […]
Rundown of the Zapad 2017 Scenario
Interesting rundown of Zapad 2017 by Anna Maria Dyner from the Polish Institute of International Affairs. It is interesting that Russia and Belarus use fictional adversaries but real geography for their own side. This seems like a good approach compared to the rather artificial scenarios you sometimes see at NATO exercises where participants end up […]
Russia denies access for observers to Zapad 2017
Ben Hodges, the U.S. Army’s commander in Europe, accuses Russia of fiddling with the numbers in order to keep foreign observers away from the upcoming exercise Zapad 2017, according to The Baltic Times: “The Russians had not given us a lot of reason to trust the numbers that they say. But again, the exercise hasn’t […]