Military drills between Russia and Belarus threaten to disrupt Ukraine’s seaport trade

Thousands of Russian troops launched a 10-day exercise in Belarus on Thursday, and Ukraine warned of forthcoming Russian naval drills so broad that they would choke shipping lanes, as the Kremlin extended its military stronghold on Ukraine.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s top diplomat, provided a pessimistic appraisal of diplomatic efforts aimed at preventing a full-scale invasion in Moscow. He characterized his conversations with his British counterpart as a “mute person with a deaf person,” emphasizing once more that the West was not taking Russia’s most pressing concerns seriously.

Vladimir Putin was a little more conciliatory when he told reporters on Thursday that talks with the West over Russia’s demands to change the security architecture of Eastern Europe were going on.

He stated that Russia was preparing written responses to the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance’s back-and-forth and that he planned to speak with French President Emmanuel Macron by phone in the coming days.

However, Russia’s escalating military action north, east, and south of Ukraine gave the diplomatic scramble an ominous undertone.

New deployments of Russian military equipment and troops were seen in Crimea, western Russia, and Belarus in satellite images acquired on Wednesday and Thursday.

Maxar Technologies, a Colorado-based space technology firm, has published new imagery that reveals new or additional deployments in three areas in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Troops, vehicles, and other equipment are being deployed at Novoozernoye and Slavne, both along the western shore, as well as more than 550 new tents for troops and hundreds of vehicles at a former airfield in Oktyabrskoe, in the peninsula’s center.

Additional military assets were also relocated to the Kursk area in western Russia, according to satellite pictures. This places them near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which has a sizable Russian-speaking community.

In Belarus, Ukraine’s northern neighbour and Russia’s closest international ally, Russian fighter jets launched air patrols and Russia’s potent S-400 air defence systems were deployed near the Ukrainian border.

Russian marines normally based in eastern Siberia – more than 2,500 miles (4,023km) away – practised urban warfare during the drills, the Russian Defence Ministry said.

And off Ukraine’s southeastern coast, in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, Russia was preparing to hold large-scale naval exercises – prompting a protest from Ukraine that they would block vital trading routes.

“Unprecedented coverage of manoeuvres does not allow navigation in both seas,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said. “This is a significant and unfounded justification for the activities of international shipping, especially trade, which can cause complex economic and social consequences, especially for the ports of Ukraine.”

Ukraine said the planned drills were “an abuse of international law” by Russia “in order to achieve its own geopolitical goals”, and it called on other countries to respond by barring Russian ships from their ports.

Ukraine’s seaports of Odessa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Mariupol and Berdyansk, which could be disrupted by the Russian military exercises, are gateways for the vast grain exports from Ukraine’s black earth farming zone, along with coal, steel and other commodities important for the country’s economy.

Russia rejected those accusations. Moscow described all the drills as legal under international law and promised that Russian troops would leave Belarus after the exercises there conclude on Feb 20. But Western officials worry that the exercises are a cover to position more Russian forces around Ukraine, giving Mr Putin the ability to launch an invasion on short notice.

Western officials have said they do not believe Mr Putin has made a decision to invade. But combined with Russia’s recent buildup on Ukraine’s eastern border and in Crimea, the troops in Belarus and the amphibious landing ships and other warships gathering off Ukraine’s coast created the sense of a noose tightening around Ukraine.

“This is a dangerous moment for European security,” said Mr Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary-general, describing Russia’s military deployment to Belarus as its biggest since the end of the Cold War. “The warning time for a possible attack is going down.”

The joint news conference in Moscow by the top British and Russian diplomats offered a stark display of the clashing worldviews that have made the crisis over Ukraine appear nearly impossible to resolve.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss of Britain, making a hastily scheduled visit, reiterated Western warnings that an invasion of Ukraine would result in “a prolonged and drawn-out conflict”, and that Russia needed to pull back the 130,000 troops that US and Ukrainian officials estimate it had massed near Ukraine’s borders.

Mr Lavrov countered by repeating the Russian government’s contention that it was not threatening anyone and, therefore, had no reason to de-escalate.

“You first have to prove to me that we are the ones who created this tense situation,” Mr Lavrov said, rejecting the idea of a Russian invasion as bordering on farce. The West “is trying to make a tragedy out of this, while, increasingly, it’s similar to a comedy”.

While Mr Macron sought to strike a constructive tone after meeting on Monday with Mr Putin for five hours in Moscow, little optimism emerged from Ms Truss’ visit.

“I am honestly disappointed that we’re having the conversation of a mute person with a deaf person,” Mr Lavrov said. “It’s as though we are hearing each other but not listening.”

Russia has made a series of demands of the West, including scaling back the Nato military presence in Eastern Europe to 1990s levels, and guaranteeing that Ukraine could never join Nato. The US has called those demands “non-starters” and instead offered a series of proposals aimed at arms control.

Despite the apparent impasse, Western diplomatic efforts are continuing.

In Berlin, Chancellor Olaf Scholz met with the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which all border on Russia. The three Baltic nations welcomed Germany’s recent commitment to send an additional 350 troops to the German-led Nato mission in Lithuania. But they expressed frustration with Berlin’s decision not to supply defensive weapons to Ukraine and hinted that as a key Nato ally, Berlin should shore up its military spending.

British Defence Minister Ben Wallace is expected to visit Moscow on Friday to meet his Russian counterpart. And next week, Mr Scholz is due in Moscow for talks with Mr Putin.

General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called his Belarusian counterpart, Major-General Viktor Gulevich, according to Belarus. The two discussed “regional security related issues of concern”, the Pentagon said, aiming to “reduce chances of miscalculation”.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said during a visit to Nato headquarters in Brussels on Thursday that he did not think Russia had made a decision on whether to launch an invasion. “But that doesn’t mean it is impossible that something absolutely disastrous could happen very soon indeed,” Mr Johnson said.

Source: NYTIMES, BLOOMBERG

Image Credit: Getty

You were reading: Military drills between Russia and Belarus threaten to disrupt Ukraine’s seaport trade