Right on schedule, NATO and its Eastern European vassals are building up fear-mongering ahead of the upcoming Russian-Belarusian Zapad 21 exercise. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, in an interview with Reuters, demanded that Moscow and Minsk be more “transparent” about the exercise. “Russia should behave in a predictable and transparent way,” he said. “What we have seen before is that the numbers of troops participating in the exercises significantly exceed the numbers announced,” Stoltenberg said, urging Moscow to meet its obligations under the Vienna Document, an international agreement governing military exercises in Europe. According to a tally by NATO Review, an allied magazine, Russia deployed between 60,000 and 70,000 troops in Zapad-2017 but only declared 12,700 personnel.
“The reality is that since the end of the Cold War, Russia has never opened an exercise for mandatory inspections,” Stoltenberg said. “So we will be vigilant.”
Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the State Duma Committee for Foreign Affairs, dismissed Stoltenberg’s demand. “Cooperation is a two-way street. The North Atlantic Alliance unilaterally downgraded its level of relations with Russia. This is their choice,” Slutsky remarked, reported TASS.
