Putin's Zapad 2017 simulated a war against NATO and neutral countries

[Livingston]

Although it has already been discussed here a few months ago, now the German newspaper Bild has a rather detailed article out.

Kremlin forces rehearsed capturing NATO’s “region of vulnerability, according to the Russian view”, namely the three Baltic states. “To realize this, you would have to quickly do the Suwalki gap operation” in order to cut off Poland and NATO reinforcements from Lithuania. This is exactly what Russia did, creating the artificial state of “Veyshnoria” at the exact location of the 40-kilometre land bridge between Poland and Lithuania (carried out on Belarussian territory, however).

At the same time, Russia rehearsed “neutralizing or taking under control air fields and harbours (in the Baltic states), so there are no reinforcements arriving from other NATO states there”. The sources emphasized that, in the case of an emergency, this would, in the first few days, be a purely military operation.

“Russian air force strategic aviation, long-range aviation, took part in the exercise on two days and conducted simulation flights over the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. They exercised bombings of Western European targets, approaching the German and Dutch coast from the North Sea as well as Swedish, Finish and Polish mainland from the Baltic Sea. The drill included waves of Tu-95 strategic bombers as well as support aircraft like fighter jets and refuelling planes.”

In a real-life situation, their targets would include “critical infrastructure, that is, air fields, harbours, energy supplies and so on, in order to shock the countries and make the populations demand from their governments that ‘we shouldn’t be involved here, we should go for peace instead”.

"In war time, Russian bombers would have approached from the East as well, but in ‘peace times’, this attack direction (towards Germany) along the Norwegian coast would make sense”. Russia could not practice strategic air attacks from the East due to the Belarussian and Ukrainian airspace between Russia and its potential targets. Moreover, the sources made it clear that strategic air raids would have been flanked by large-scale missile attacks on NATO targets, using Iskander tactical missiles in the Kaliningrad region for targeting NATO strategic assets in the Baltic Sea countries. It is “not clear, but likely” that such attacks were also rehearsed in the Zapad 2017 drills.

According to the sources, these risky manoeuvres (over the North Sea) could show that Russia has planned “show of force attacks” that deeply penetrate Western-dominated air space and a “surprise element”, as NATO missile defences are better prepared in the East of Europe than in NATO states like Norway, Denmark, the UK, and Germany.

More here:

http://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/bild-international/zapad-2017-english-54233658.bild.html

 

[rothauserch]

seems to me that would escalate to a nuclear exchange between NATO and Russia

 

[DEFCON Warning System]

seems to me that would escalate to a nuclear exchange between NATO and Russia

Probably. Russians would be fools to think that large scale missile attacks on NATO targets wouldn't go nuclear. The Iskander tactical missiles they are talking about are nuclear strike, if memory serves.

 

[Upshot]

The soviet plan of fires always emphasised throwing the works in the opening salvo's, prominently, nuclear strikes. - see ' Seven days to the River Rhine.' Frankfurt, Brussels, all of the Rhine bases, C3I4, economic and 'cultural' targets. The last two were particularly troubling- deliberate nuclear targeting of civil targets with no military value, producing casualties and civilian flight to demoralize, over-whelm resources and choke transport routes. Puto the distinctly lacking in stature has long ago promised to nuke first and ask questions not in order to get his way.
We were the only ones who ever talked about a 'nuclear threshold'. The soviet and russian threshold has always been 'H+0 Shoot'.
These guys conduct war in a typically oriental style- no distinction is made between 'military' and 'civil' targets. Mass civilian kills are viewed as preferable and cost-effective.
Surely, this is not a surprise.