By Steve Gutterman
Source: Yahoo News
MOSCOW (Reuters) - President
Vladimir Putin ordered an urgent drill to test the combat readiness of
his armed forces across western Russia on Wednesday, flexing Moscow's
military muscle amid tension with the West over Ukraine.
Russia said the exercises were not linked to events in Ukraine, where
the ouster of a president who turned his back on the European Union and
sought closer ties with Moscow has raised worries in the West over
possibility of military intervention.
Putin has ordered several such surprise drills in different Russian
regions since he returned to the presidency in 2012, saying the military
must be kept on its toes, but the crisis in the neighboring nation gave
them added geopolitical resonance.
"In accordance with an order from the president of the Russian
Federation, forces of the Western Military District were put on alert at
1400 (0500 ET) today," the Interfax news agency quoted Defence Minister
Sergei Shoigu as saying.
Shoigu said the training drills were not linked to events in Ukraine,
and Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov said they had been
previously planned. He said they would involve about 150,000 military
personnel.
The western district encompasses most of western Russia and borders Ukraine, which lies between NATO nations and Russia.
Forces must "be ready to bomb unfamiliar testing grounds" as part of the drill, Shoigu told a Defence Ministry meeting.
Putin has made no public comment on Ukraine since President Viktor
Yanukovich was driven from power over the weekend. His ouster came after
months of political turmoil that began when he spurned deals with the
European Union and sought to improve ties with Russia.
The United States and European nations have warned Russia against
military intervention in Ukraine, a former Soviet republic that Putin
has called a "brother nation" and wants to be part of a Eurasian Union
he is building in the region.
Russian officials have said Moscow will not interfere in Ukraine, while
accusing the West of doing so. Interfax cited the speaker of the upper
parliament house, Valentina Matviyenko, as saying on Wednesday it would
not use force.
But Prime
Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday that Russia's interests and its
citizens in Ukraine were under threat, language reminiscent of
statements justifying Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008, when he was
president.
Shoigu said the
drill would be conducted in two stages, ending on March 3, and also
involved the command centers of Russia's Air and Space Defence forces,
paratroops and long-range aviation as well as some troops in central
Russia.
In the two-day first
stage, military units would be brought to "the highest degree of combat
readiness" and would be deployed to testing areas on land and sea,
Interfax quoted Shoigu as saying.
The second stage would include tactical exercises and involve warships
from the Northern and Baltic Fleets, he said, and some warplanes would
move to combat airfields.
Descriptions of the exercises did not mention the Black Sea Fleet, which
is based in Sevastopol in Crimea. Tension over Ukraine's turmoil is
high because of the fleet's presence and the region's large ethnic
Russian population.
In
separate comments, Shoigu said Russia was "carefully watching what is
happening in Crimea" and was taking unspecified measures to ensure the
security of the facilities and arsenals of the Black Sea Fleet,
state-run RIA reported.
Shoigu said the drill would also test the counter-terrorism measures in
place at military units. Russian officials have referred to some of the
Ukrainian opposition forces whose protests pushed Yanukovich from power
as "terrorists".
(Writing by Steve Gutterman and Thomas Grove, editing by Larry King)
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