A recent, massive military exercise conducted by Russia and Belarus focused on preparation “for a conflict with NATO,” Estonian intelligence officials observed in a new report released under the shadow of a potential offensive against Ukraine.
“There are concrete indications that NATO was still the main adversary,” the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service observed in their latest report on international security. “More and more of the prescribed tactical actions are practiced in each subsequent exercise, in greater detail and on actual terrain.”
About 200,000 troops participated in September exercises known as Zapad 2021, and the experience seems to have resulted in the creation of “new formations” within the Russian military. Those war games were followed by the mobilization of 150,000 troops around Ukrainian territory, according to the Estonians, a force that enables Putin to confront Kyiv with a persistent threat of a major military offensive.
“In our assessment, the Russian Armed Forces are ready to embark on a full-scale military operation against Ukraine from the second half of February,” the report, released Tuesday, stipulated. “Even if Russia’s leadership can be persuaded to desist from military aggression, Estonia and other Western countries must prepare for increasingly sustained military pressure from Russia — direct threats of war have become an integral part of the foreign policy of Putin’s Russia over the past year.”
PUTIN MIGHT HAVE BLINKED, BUT RUSSIA CAN STILL ATTACK UKRAINE WITHOUT WARNING
President Joe Biden echoed Estonia’s assessment of the size of the prospective invasion force in a Tuesday address while warning Russian President Vladimir Putin not to take the risk of creating a crisis that might spill into the NATO member states that border Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.
“Make no mistake, the U.S. will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full force of American power,” Biden said. “An attack against one NATO country is an attack against all of us, and the U.S. commitment to Article 5 is sacrosanct.”
Putin’s threats against Ukraine have superseded Belarusian strongman President Alexander Lukashenko’s hostility to Lithuania, which has given sanctuary to the Belarusian opposition leaders who were driven from the country after Lukashenko declared himself the victor of a presidential election widely deemed fraudulent. Lukashenko, in the face of massive domestic protests against the election results, moved to punish Lithuania and other NATO neighbors by bringing migrants from the Middle East into Belarus and then driving them over the borders into the countries of his European neighbors.
In the midst of the latest military buildup, Lukashenko and Putin announced that they would conduct yet another set of drills, which allowed Russian forces to move into Belarus within easy striking distance of Ukraine. Yet Belarusian officials maintained Tuesday that they had assured Kyiv that the exercises are not a portent of a new conflict.
“Ukraine’s military attache is here today to see that we are no threat to our next-door neighbor, but we are just training our troops to maintain our security,” Belarusian Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Viktor Khrenin said, per Belarusian state media.
Putin, for his part, likewise declared his desire to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis, which Russian officials have portrayed as a twofold controversy centered on NATO’s expansion in Eastern Europe and the standoff between Kyiv and the Russian proxies that control territory in Eastern Ukraine.
“We want to solve this issue now as part of negotiation process through peaceful means,” Putin said Tuesday. “We very much hope that our partners hear our concerns and take them seriously.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Estonian officials cautioned that Putin’s pressure on Ukraine, which is not in NATO but aspires to join the alliance, could empower him to threaten NATO’s eastern flank.
“Although war in Ukraine would not pose an immediate military threat to Estonia or NATO, Russia’s political and military pressure on the Baltic states could [increase] in the long term should Russia achieve diplomatic and/or military success on the Ukraine issue,” the Baltic spy agency emphasized.
