ZAPAD-2021, a major weeklong Russian military exercise, got underway on Thursday. Joined by Belarus, the exercise claims to test responses to a NATO-led military and terrorist attack on Belarus.

In reality, the exercise has three other purposes. First, to improve the Russian military’s ability to conduct combined arms operations at scale. Second, to deter future Western action against Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. And third, to provide propaganda for Vladimir Putin’s increasingly paranoid government.

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