Soldier of Fortune Magazine The Journal of Professional Adventurers
Recent media reports have claimed that Putin is taking a hard line and will destroy anybody that violates Russia’s borders: Putin ‘ready to destroy’ with tensions between Russia and West nearing ‘boiling point’
SEAL Robert O’Neill weighs in:
It take a look at the Official Position from a Russian MOD Release:
Moscow. The Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation General of the Army Sergey Shoigu on a joint session:
Chief of the Russian military establishment emphasized the difficulties of the military and political situation. There are an increase of the NATO forward presence near the borders of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, an improvement of its military infrastructure, a stockpile of armament, equipment and material means, a training practice of deployment operations.
‘Therefore, a United States Army armoured brigade and four multinational battalion tactical groups have been deployed to Poland and Baltic countries. Coalition Divisions headquarters of the Alliance have been formed in Romania, Poland and Latvia. There is an increase of port and airfield infrastructure capacities’, said Shoigu.
In his assessment, the strength of NATO primary involvement force has almost doubled: from 25 to 40 thousand servicemen.
In Romania and Poland, Washington deploys Aegis Ashore missile defence systems. Moreover, the universality of their launchers enables the application of Tomahawk cruise missiles and promising strike means, along with anti-ballistic missiles, developed by the Pentagon’, emphasised the Russian Minister of Defence.
He has stressed the importance of the meeting with the Belarusian counterparts in person, despite the pandemic, for examining the difficulties of the military and political situation.
‘Today we are going to discuss the relevant issues on the cooperation between our defence establishments. The in-person format of the event, notwithstanding the ongoing pandemic, emphasises the importance of our meetings in the conditions of a difficult military and political situation’, said Sergey Shoigu.
In addition, according to the Minister, the US Military have commenced an active work, aimed to modernise tactical nuclear weapons and its storage facilities in the European countries. At the same time, there is a particular concern about the involvement of pilots from non-nuclear countries that form part of the Alliance in the exercises, dedicated to the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
The number of reconnaissance and tactical aircraft of the NATO Air Force on the Russian frontier, in comparison with the last year, has increased by about one third.
According to the chief of the Russian military establishment, the intensity of operational and combat training under the aegis of the NATO remains high.
The Russian Defence Minister said: “Every year, more than 30 exercises which scenario is based onto confrontation against Russia are held near the border of the Union State. Increasingly, countries outside the alliance – Georgia, Ukraine, Sweden and Finland – are involved in them. The territories of the Baltic states, Poland, and the Baltic Sea have become more actively used for conducting maneuvers”.
He also said that military threats, economical and political pressure from from West forced Russia and Belarus to take retaliatory measures and one of them is the new Military doctrine of the Union state.
Shoigu said: “A new Military doctrine of the Union state is developed and is planned to be approved in the near future at the next meeting of Union state High Council.
He noted that ministries of defence of two countries have switched to planning bilateral cooperation on the basis of a program of political interaction developed for a period of five years. The scale of training of troops and command structures is being expanded.
He said: “In September we held a joint strategic exercise “Zapad-2021”. We will work off actions within the CSTO. Currently an exercise with Collective Rapid Interaction Forces of the CSTO “Interaction-2021” is held in Tajikistan. In September Belorussian servicemen participated counter-terrorist exercise “Peace Mission-2021” within the framework of SCO.
He stressed that the achieved level of interaction between Ministries of Defence in Russia and Belarus allows to timely adaptize security tasks to the changes taking place in the world and their effectively solve them.
Shoigu stated: “In the conditions of increasing threats to the Union State the implementation of a coordinated military policy, cooperation in forming and development of the Armed forces, increasing the level of coherence and combat training and mutual use of military infrastructure objects are becoming particulary relevant for Russian and Belarus and the activities of Joint Colledge is demanded as never before”.
