Major Nato war games seek to ease fear of Russian threat

Nato has launched its biggest exercise since the cold war, as it strengthens its posture in eastern Europe in response to Russia's robust military moves and aggression in Ukraine.

The "Anaconda" manoeuvres in Poland will last for 10 days and involve 31,000 soldiers from more than 20 Nato member states and partner nations such as Ukraine, as well as some 3,000 vehicles including 105 aircraft and 12 naval vessels.

The Polish-led war games will seek to test and improve Nato’s ability to respond quickly to a threat on its eastern flank, and will include everything from live-fire operations to cyber and electronic warfare exercises.

The manoeuvres come one month ahead of a Nato summit in the Polish capital Warsaw, at which the alliance’s leaders are expected to finalise plans to boost troops numbers in eastern Europe to ward off the perceived threat from Moscow.

Poland and the Baltic states have been particularly alarmed by Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and supply of major military support to separatists in eastern Ukraine, where two years of fighting have killed almost 10,000 people.

Russia has also ramped up the size and frequency of its own military exercises, and sharply increased the number of its warplanes and warships that enter or pass close to the territory of Nato members and other states, including Ireland.

In April, Russian SU-24 fighter jets “buzzed” the USS Donald Cook, passing within nine metres of the destroyer in what the US navy called a “simulated attack”, as the ship sailed in the Baltic Sea after leaving the Polish port of Gdynia.

The Kremlin insists that its armed forces are only responding defensively to Nato’s continued expansion and alleged attempts to encircle Russia.

Irked

Moscow has been irked in recent months by Nato’s decision to admit Montenegro, a country with traditionally strong ties to Russia, and the US activation of a missile-defence shied in Romania and the start of construction work on a similar site in Poland.

"We do not hide our negative attitude toward Nato's course on moving military infrastructure closer to our borders," Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said this week.

“Here, there comes into force Russia’s sovereign right to ensure its security by measures that are appropriate to the current risks.”

Mr Lavrov did not say what measures he had in mind, but Moscow has previously threatened to deploy powerful Iskander ballistic missiles to Kaliningrad, a sliver of heavily militarised Russian territory wedged between Poland and Lithuania.

“I am confident that serious and honest politicians know that Russia will never attack any member country of [Nato],” Mr Lavrov added.

“We do not have any plans like this. I think Nato knows this very well, but just uses the pretext to deploy more equipment and battalions, primarily to ensure that the United States still keeps an eye on this area.”

At Nato’s July 8th-9th summit in Warsaw, it is expected to confirm plans for four combat battalions to be sent to Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.