By Gitika Sharma
The exercises have NATO’s eastern members on high alert, Poland announced that it would have 40,000 troops near the border, which holds its joint training with NATO members, Moscow has played down the concerns, claiming that no one is the target of the drills.
France-Presse Agence MOSCOW NATO was on edge Friday as Russia and its main al-major joint military exercises got underway early. Poland had accused Moscow member inflaming tensions by launching attack drones over its airspace days earlier.
As Russian forces move across Ukraine’s enormous front line and intensify bombings on Ukrainian cities, the “Zapad” drills are conducted.
The Russian Defence Ministry posted a video showing heavy military assets, such as armoured vehicles, helicopters, and navy ships, taking part in the exercises. It added that among the tactics practiced would be missile strikes on ground targets and aircraft surveillance.
For the exercises, Russia further claimed to have sent ships from its Northern Fleet to the Barents Sea and the northern Arctic Ocean.
The training exercises, some of which will be taking place in Belarus’ Grodno region, which neighbours Poland and Lithuania, have put NATO members on the eastern flank that border Belarus and Russia on high alert, according to Minsk.
Security has been stepped up in both EU nations. Overnight, Poland shut down its borders with Belarus until further notice.
Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland, claimed that after Poland and its NATO partners rushed to shoot down Russian drones violating its airspace early Wednesday, Warsaw was now closer to “open conflict” than it had been since World War II.
According to Poland, which conducts its own joint exercises with NATO members on the same day as Zapad, it will have about 40,000 troops at the border during the exercises between Russia and Belarus.
Moscow has played down the worries. Poland claimed that the drills were a “aggressive” display of might, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday that “these are planned exercises, they are not aimed against anyone.”
The first Zapad event during the Ukrainian conflict, which is typically conducted every four years, is scheduled to take place in 2025 and run through September 16.