Tag Archives: War Games

U.S. general says allies worry Russian war game may be ‘Trojan horse’

U.S Army Europe Commanding General Ben Hodges speaks during the inauguration ceremony of bilateral military training between U.S. and Polish troops in Zagan, Poland, January 30, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

By Andrea Shalal

BERLIN (Reuters) – U.S. allies in eastern Europe and Ukraine are worried that Russia’s planned war games in September could be a “Trojan horse” aimed at leaving behind military equipment brought into Belarus, the U.S. Army’s top general in Europe said on Thursday.

Russia has sought to reassure NATO that the military exercises will respect international limits on size, but NATO and U.S. official remain wary about their scale and scope.

U.S. Army Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, who heads U.S. Army forces in Europe, told Reuters in an interview that allied officials would keep a close eye on military equipment brought in to Belarus for the Zapad 2017 exercise, and whether it was removed later.

“People are worried, this is a Trojan horse. They say, ‘We’re just doing an exercise,’ and then all of a sudden they’ve moved all these people and capabilities somewhere,” he said.

Hodges said he had no indications that Russia had any such plans, but said greater openness by Moscow about the extent of its war games would help reassure countries in eastern Europe.

A senior Russian diplomat strongly rejected allegations that Moscow could leave military equipment in Belarus.

“This artificial buffoonery over the routine Zapad-2017 exercises is aimed at justifying the sharp intensification of the NATO bloc (activities) along the perimeter of Russian territory,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told the Interfax news agency on Friday.

NATO allies are nervous because previous large-scale Russian exercises employed special forces training, longer-range missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.

Such tactics were later used in Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine and in its intervention in Syria, NATO diplomats say.

Hodges said the United States and its allies had been very open about a number of military exercises taking place across eastern Europe this summer involving up to 40,000 troops, but it remained unclear if Moscow would adhere to a Cold War-era treaty known as the Vienna document, which requires observers for large-scale exercises involving more than 13,000 troops.

Some NATO allies believe the Russian exercise could number more than 100,000 troops and involve nuclear weapons training, the biggest such exercise since 2013.

Russia has said it would invite observers if the exercise exceeded 13,000 forces.

Hodges said NATO would maintain normal rotations during the Russian war game, while carrying out previously scheduled exercises in Sweden, Poland and Ukraine.

The only additional action planned during that period was a six-week deployment of three companies of 120 paratroopers each to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for “low-level” exercises, Hodges said.

“We want to avoid anything that looks like a provocation. This is not going to be the ‘Sharks’ and the ‘Jets’ out on the streets,” Hodges said in a reference to the gang fights shown in the 1961 film “West Side Story” set in New York City.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

U.S., Philippine troops train for typhoon as Duterte puts war games on hold

Filipino soldiers, member of a decontamination unit, check a mock rescuers, as a part of a chemical scenario during the Philippines and United States annual Balikatan (shoulder to shoulder) exercises inside the Fort Magsaysay military headquarters in Nueva Ecija province, north of Manila, Philippines May 12, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

By Martin Petty

FORT MAGSAYSAY, Philippines (Reuters) – Philippine soldiers crawl through narrow pipes to save civilians and haul casualties by ropes from atop a derelict building, coached by U.S. army teams in a simulation of a rescue after a ferocious typhoon.

Soldiers practice putting on protective overalls and drilling through collapsed rubble, in exercises part and parcel of “Balikatan” (shoulder to shoulder), the conventional warfare exercises that for decades have bolstered a treaty alliance and helped preserve a U.S. strategic foothold in Asia.

But this year’s edition is a shadow of what it was a year ago, involving only half the 11,000 troops, and stripped of all combat-related exercises at the behest of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte makes no secret of his disdain for an alliance with the United States that he sees as an obstacle to his rapprochement with China, and has tamed Balikatan to avoid provoking Beijing, and to hammer home his message that the Philippines is no U.S. lackey.

The 2016 exercises, which Duterte had said would be “the last”, featured live-fire drills, amphibious landings and a combat simulation of the re-taking of a South China Sea island from an unspecified enemy.

What’s left this year is largely Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response (HADR) training, seen on Friday’s at a military base in Nueva Ecija province, where forces practised for the scenario of a typhoon striking the capital Manila.

“It’s instruction-based, hands-on and practical and they’re doing pretty good,” said Sergeant First-class Jay Bal, a Filipino-American who is among 30 members of the Hawaii National Guard training Philippine army engineers and rescue teams.

The idea of Balikatan was to rehearse a joint defense plan under the old allies’ 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty, one of several agreements Duterte has threatened to abrogate, arguing the U.S. troop presence could make the Philippines a target for Chinese aggression.

Duterte, who holds talks in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, has reversed a Philippine foreign policy that prized close U.S. ties and saw China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea as a threat to its sovereignty.

Duterte has denounced Washington for “hypocrisy” and for treating the Philippines “like a dog”. He has shunned all U.S. activities in the Philippines, but made a point of touring visiting warships from China and Russia in recent weeks.

AVOIDING ANTAGONISM

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the training exercises were valuable but Duterte wanted no more “war games”.

“We are concentrating on HADR, counter-terrorism, and many things related to that,” he said last week.

“The president doesn’t want to antagonize some people in the neighborhood.”

Like many U.S. officials, Marine Lieutenant-General Lawrence Nicholson, the commander leading Balikatan, insists the alliance remains strong, and the removal of combat training did not devalue the exercises.

“These are skills that are pertinent to any type of military operation,” he said.

Many experts say that geopolitical realities mean ties are unlikely to take a permanent hit from Duterte’s hostility and say the Philippine military’s mistrust of China means it will not risk losing its U.S. support.

Richard Heydarian, an expert on politics and international affairs at Manila’s De La Salle University, said the bare-bones Balikatan indicated a “mitigated downgrade” in the U.S. relationship, but that was easily reversible and contingent on China’s actions and the foreign policy approach of the Trump administration.

“Duterte clearly respects his military, which is clear about its suspicions of China but unclear about America,” he said, referring to the uncertainty about U.S. priorities in the region.

“China is consolidating with its strategic objectives, but I don’t think China will forget those plans just because Duterte talks nice to them.”

(Additional reporting by Manuel Mogato in Manila; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Duterte, Philippines could join sea exercises with Japan, vents anger at U.S.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (C), accompanied by Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade (2nd R) and Defense Secretary Delfin N Lorenzana (2nd L), watches Japan's coast guard drills in Yokohama, Japan

By Minami Funakoshi

YOKOHAMA, Japan (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Thursday his country could join naval exercises with Japan, but repeated there would be no more war games with long-time ally the United States and again gave vent to his anger against Washington.

Duterte also said he had explained to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in talks on Wednesday just why he resented the United States, reiterating that Washington treated the Philippines like “dogs on a leash” and lectured about human rights in connection with his domestic campaign against drugs.

The Philippine leader’s visit to Japan coincides with jitters about his foreign policy after weeks of verbal attacks on the United States, including threats to end military agreements, and overtures toward China.

Duterte last week announced in China his “separation” from the United States, but then insisted ties were not being severed and that he was merely pursuing an independent foreign policy.

“Joint exercise with Japan in general terms is not a problem. Stationing of Japanese troops was not discussed and with the Americans, it’s problematic,” Duterte told reporters one day after saying he wanted foreign troops out of his country “maybe in the next two years”.

“I don’t want to embarrass my defense secretary but the exercises with the Americans will be the last,” he said.

Duterte, on the final day of a three-day visit to Japan, made the comments after watching Japan Coast Guard activities in the port of Yokohama, near Tokyo.

Duterte’s recent comments pose a headache for Abe, who has tightened ties with Washington while building closer security relations with Manila and other Southeast Asian countries as a counter-weight to a rising China, which has maritime feuds with several countries in the region including Japan.

In their Wednesday talks, Duterte and Abe agreed on the importance of settling maritime disputes peacefully.

Duterte said he had explained to Abe why he was angry with the United States.

“I had told the prime minister some of my sentiments against the Americans. They are treating us like dogs on a leash,” he said. “The prime minister understands that.”

Domestic backing for Duterte is strong, but there is far from the same level of support for his stance on the United States. A peaceful protest outside the U.S. embassy in Manila in support of Duterte on Thursday drew about 500 people.

While Duterte’s anti-U.S. diatribes cast doubts on the future of the U.S.-Philippine security alliance, a clearer picture could emerge next month when defense officials from both sides have a meeting in Manila that takes place annually and typically plans joint exercises for the following year.

Although Duterte said there would be no more joint exercises, an army spokesman on Thursday confirmed preparations were under way for drills next month on the island of Palawan involving Filipino troops and a small unit of U.S. special forces.

“This was planned more than a year ago, but if there will be an order from higher authorities to cancel it, we will obey,” Colonel Benjamin Hao, an army spokesman, said.

“But, so far, there are no instructions.”

A scheduled call by Duterte on Japanese Emperor Akihito, 82, was canceled following the death on Thursday of Akihito’s 100-year-old uncle, Prince Mikasa.

(Additional reporting by Manuel Mogato in MANILA; Writing by Linda Sieg; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Russia announces war games after accusing Ukraine of terrorist plot

Russian President Putin chairs meeting with members of Security Council to discuss additional security measures for Crimea after clashes on

By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin summoned his security council and the Russian Navy announced war games in the Black Sea, a day after the Russian president accused Ukraine of trying to provoke a conflict over Crimea, which Moscow seized and annexed in 2014.

The belligerent posture heightened worries in Ukraine that Russia may plan to ramp up fighting in a war between Kiev and pro-Russian eastern separatists that had been de-escalated by a shaky peace process.

Using some of his most aggressive rhetoric against Kiev since the height of the war two years ago, Putin has pledged to take counter-measures against Ukraine, which he accused of sending saboteurs into Crimea to carry out terrorist acts.

Ukraine has called the accusations false and says they look like a pretext for Russia to escalate hostilities. Such an escalation could be used by Putin to demand better terms in the Ukraine peace process, or to inflame nationalist passions at home ahead of Russian parliamentary elections next month.

The Russian leader met his top military and intelligence service brass on Thursday and reviewed “scenarios for counter-terrorism security measures along the land border, offshore and in Crimean air space,” the Kremlin said.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he had ordered all Ukrainian units near Crimea and in eastern Ukraine onto the highest state of combat readiness. He was seeking to urgently speak to Putin, the leaders of France and Germany, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and European Council President Donald Tusk.

Oleh Slobodyan, a spokesman for the Ukrainian border guards, said Russia had massed troops on Ukraine’s border with Crimea in recent days following an uptick in Russian military activity in northern Crimea and heavier fighting in eastern Ukraine.

“These troops are coming with more modern equipment and there are air assault units,” he told a news briefing in Kiev.

The Russian Defence Ministry said its navy – whose Black Sea Fleet is based in Crimea – would start to hold exercises in the area to practice repelling underwater attacks by saboteurs.

PUTIN’S PLAY

Russia says it caught the infiltrators after at least two armed clashes on the border between Crimea and Ukraine over the weekend, and one of its soldiers and an FSB security service employee were killed. Kiev denies the events ever happened.

Whatever the truth, the allegations have already scuppered planned talks about eastern Ukraine slated for the sidelines of a G20 summit in China next month. Putin said such talks would now be “pointless.”

In an editorial, the Russian newspaper Vedomosti said escalation was a proven Kremlin tactic ahead of negotiations. Putin was trying either to alter or to tear up the Minsk peace process, named for the Belarus capital where truces were hammered out for the war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region.

“Events in Donbass in 2014-15 showed that the Kremlin tactic is to raise the stakes before negotiations. The main political question now is what will happen to the Minsk process. Will Russia break away from it or will it demand new concessions?” the newspaper wrote.

“Putin in his rhetoric has returned to the start of 2014. Once again, he does not deem the Ukrainian authorities legitimate.”

Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst in Ukraine, said he thought the Kremlin had its own revised peace plan for eastern Ukraine up its sleeve.

“Putin will scare the West with the prospect of full-scale conflict with Ukraine,” he said. “He is trying to increase pressure on Kiev to force Ukraine to accept a Russian plan to resolve the conflict in the east.

“Putin won’t go all out for a big war. But there might be pinpoint military operations against radicals whose bases are located near the border with Crimea.”

PUTIN’S AIMS

The European Union and the United States have tied the success of talks under the Minsk process to any possible decision to lift financial sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukraine crisis.

But Moscow has grown increasingly frustrated by the talks and by what it says is Ukraine’s refusal to fulfill the terms of the truce. Kiev for its part says Moscow is the one that is still stirring tensions among pro-Russian separatists.

Escalating tension over Crimea could give Putin a pretext to abandon talks altogether, or demand changes to their format and terms, while holding out the prospect of a full-scale renewal of hostilities if he doesn’t get what he wants.

It could also help rally Russians ahead of the parliamentary vote, in which the main pro-Kremlin United Russia Party might struggle to win as many votes as usual because of an economic slump caused by low oil prices as well as the sanctions.

“While polls show United Russia doing okay (60 percent support), Putin never likes to take chances with domestic politics,” Timothy Ash, a strategist at Nomura Bank, wrote in a note. “(He) will want to impress on the Russian electorate his own strength and how lucky they are to be Russian citizens as perhaps compared to their Ukrainian counterparts.”

The imbroglio also gives Crimea’s pro-Russian authorities an excuse for their failure to raise living standards since Russia took over. Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-backed prime minister, told state TV he blamed the Ukrainian incursions on the U.S. State Department.

Putin may also hope instability in Ukraine can feed into the U.S. presidential election campaign, where Republican Donald Trump accuses President Barack Obama’s administration of incompetence and has called for better ties with Moscow. Putin may yet hope to cut a deal on both Ukraine and Syria, the two big issues of contention with Washington, before Obama exits.

What actually happened in and around Crimea at the weekend remains disputed. U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt said Washington had so far seen nothing to corroborate Russia’s version. A spokeswoman for EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini also said there had been no independent confirmation.

Russia’s Kommersant newspaper on Thursday cited unnamed security sources as saying a group of men Russia had arrested for planning attacks had confessed to seeking to destroy Crimea’s tourist industry by bombing resorts.

The sources told Kommersant two of seven saboteurs in one group had been killed and five captured. Most were Crimea residents and some had Russian passports, they said.

In Ukraine, the brother of one of the detained men said he thought his brother had been kidnapped as part of “a big game.”

(Additonal reporting by Matthias Williams, Pavel Polityuk, Natalia Zinets and Alexei Kalmykov in Kiev, by Maria Tsvetkova and Maria Kiselyova in Moscow and by Francesco Guarascio in Brussels; Editing by Peter Graff)

Georgian army begins U.S. led military excersize, angering Russia

Georgian servicemen attend an opening ceremony of U.S. led joint military exercise "Noble Partner 2016" in Vaziani

By Margarita Antidze

TBILISI (Reuters) – The Georgian army began two weeks of military exercises with the United States and Britain on Wednesday, drawing an angry response from former Soviet master Russia which called the war games “a provocative step”.

About 650 soldiers from the United States, 150 from Britain and 500 from Georgia were taking part in the maneuvers, with Washington dispatching an entire mechanized company including eight Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and, for the first time, eight M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks.

Georgia’s Defence Minister Tina Khidasheli said the drills were an important event for the South Caucasus republic.

“This is one of the biggest exercises that our country has ever hosted, this is the biggest number of troops on the ground, and the largest concentration of military equipment,” Khidasheli told Reuters.

But the exercises went down badly in Moscow where the Russian Foreign Ministry last week warned they could destabilize the region, a charge denied by Georgian officials.

“These exercises are not directed against anyone. There is no trace of provocation,” Georgia’s Prime Minister Georgy Kvirikashvili said in a statement.

Russia defeated Georgia in a short war in 2008 over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, and Moscow continues to garrison troops there and to support another breakaway region, Abkhazia.

The exercises were run out of the Vaziani military base near Georgia’s capital Tbilisi.

Russian forces used to be based there until they withdrew at the start of the last decade under the terms of a European arms reduction agreement.

“The importance of these exercises is to improve interoperability between Georgia, the United States and the United Kingdom. … It enables us to prepare Georgia’s contribution to a NATO response force,” Colonel Jeffrey Dickerson, the U.S. director of the exercises, told Reuters.

The United States has spoken favorably of the idea that Georgia might one day join NATO, something Russia firmly opposes.

(Editing by Alexander Winning/Andrew Osborn)