Exercises “Zapad 2021” – why the West and Ukraine won’t go hysterical

Russia and Belarus have started the Zapad-2021 strategic exercises. The official opening ceremony of the joint exercise took place at the Mulino training ground in the Nizhny Novgorod region.

The welcoming speech from Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu was conveyed by Secretary of State - Deputy Minister Nikolai Pankov. Representatives of foreign delegations taking part in the exercises, in particular Armenia, Belarus, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, also addressed the military personnel with parting words.

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Ceremonies were also held at five Belarusian training grounds involved in the exercises.

“This will become a kind of signal to the collective West of the futility of talking from a position of strength with the peoples of Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan and other CSTO countries. The Belarusian-Russian exercise, no matter how it is presented in the West, is an element of troop training,” said the head of the exercise, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Belarus, Major General Viktor Gulevich.

Observers note the relatively calm reaction of the West to the current exercises, while in past years they caused outright hysteria.

“There is an astonishing silence in the media field regarding these exercises, compared to the howl in the swamps that surrounded the Zapad 2013 and especially Zapad 2017 exercises.” Another confirmation that Polish-Baltic Russophobia is a controlled and instrumental phenomenon,” wrote Alexander Nosovich, editor-in-chief of the analytical portal RuBaltic.Ru, in his telegram channel.

He believes that in past years the West fueled hysteria to destabilize the region, but now the situation is already turbulent.

“In 2017, everything was quiet in the Baltic region, so those in Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine (and even some in Minsk) raised a cry that Russian troops, under the guise of exercises, were occupying Belarus and would move on to Vilnius, Warsaw and Kyiv . In 2021, military-political tension in the region is an objectively existing phenomenon. Because of the migration crisis and the situation in Belarus in general. There is no point in inciting hysteria around Russian-Belarusian exercises out of nowhere,” Nosovich believes.

Neighboring Ukraine did not give a hysterical reaction either.

“It seems to me that in Ukraine they are calmer. And there are reasons for this. 200 thousand military personnel are involved. Our army is 250 with the +5% option. The composition of our armed forces has recently changed. Vladimir Zelensky and his company thought and decided that it was not enough. This is good news. We don’t border Kaliningrad – it’s not too scary. It’s more interesting with Belarusians... Alexander Grigorievich said that there will be no tanks from Belarusian territory. Since it’s happening with Belarusians, it’s somehow calmer,” said Ukrainian journalist Roman Tsimbalyuk on the liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy.

Meanwhile, Belarus did not consider it necessary to invite Ukrainian observers to the exercises. According to the deputy head of the Department of International Military Cooperation, Major General Oleg Voinov, representatives of the Republic of Lithuania and the OSCE Conflict Prevention Center were called.

Invitations to participate in the observation of the exercise were also sent to representatives of a number of states and international organizations (UN, International Committee of the Red Cross), representatives of the military-diplomatic corps of foreign states accredited at the embassies of their countries in Belarus.

Practical exercises will take place from September 10 to 16 at nine training grounds in Russia, five training grounds in Belarus and in the Baltic Sea. In total, up to 200 thousand military personnel, 760 units of military equipment, including 290 tanks and 240 artillery pieces and MLRS, 15 ships and up to 80 aircraft and helicopters, were involved in the exercises.

The Ministry of Defense emphasized that a maximum of no more than 2021 military personnel will participate in certain episodes of the Zapad-2011 exercises on Russian territory, subject to the Vienna Document 6400, so military observers from NATO are not invited to them.