NATO VS RUSSIA:
The Russian exercise in March started in the far north and spread across the federation in order to mimic a rapidly escalating conflict. Troops were deployed to reinforce vulnerable outlying regions like the Kola peninsula, islands in the Arctic, the Kaliningrad enclave, Crimea and the north Pacific island of Sakhalin
. As well as the huge number of elite forces and conscripts, the exercise involved 12,000 pieces of heavy equipment, 65 warships, 15 submarines and 220 aircraft.
Nato’s exercises in June comprised a naval action in the Baltic with a focus on amphibious operations in Sweden and Poland; a conventional-force exercise focused on Poland and the Baltic states that included airborne and tank clashes; and the first deployment of a joint task force set up specifically to address fears among Baltic states of Russian infiltration and the use of irregular fighters, as witnessed in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
Each exercise led to close military encounters as each side approached the other’s war games to assess their capability and hardware. The ELN report said that the Russian practice of not giving notice of its exercises added to the risk of unintended clashes and contributed to the general level of tension.
t is vitally important to increase Nato-Russia communication with regards to the schedule of exercises,” the ELN report recommended, adding that the two sides should use the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe to pass on details of war exercises in advance. The report also called on each side to weigh the costs and benefits of intensive exercises in border areas, and to show restraint in their scale.
Lastly, the thinktank – which brings together former defence ministers and senior ex-officials from Europe and Russia – appealed for work to begin on “a new treaty introducing reciprocal territorial limitations on deployment of specific categories of weapons, backed by robust inspections”.
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