Senior Russian politicians have denied his country has any aggressive intentions in relation to Ukraine, saying that all its large-scale military exercises are aimed only at strengthening the country’s defense.
Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Russian diplomats in Moscow and Vienna have been calling on partners not to distort reality and not to interpret Russia’s planned combat training events on the Russian territory as a display of aggressive intentions.
“Once again, we call on our partners, mainly Germany and France as our colleagues on the Normandy Four format, to stop partaking in the propaganda campaign around Russian events on the Russian territory that threaten no-one, and to focus instead on urging Kiev to de-escalate tensions in Donbass and implement the Minsk Agreements,” she said.
The spokeswoman pointed out that Russian diplomats in Moscow and Vienna have been calling on partners not to distort reality and not to interpret Russia’s planned combat training events on the Russian territory as a display of aggressive intentions.
“The scale of these events do not exceed the parameters of previous years and actually appear much more modest than the exercises of Ukrainian Armed Forces and NATO that take place both near the Ukrainian border and directly on the Ukrainian territory,” she noted.
Meanwhile, BBC reported that Russia’s recent ostentatious troop movement always looked like grandstanding by a country that’s given up trying to be liked and now wants the West to fear it instead.
When Vladimir Putin sent troops and hardware into eastern Ukraine seven years ago, those were secret operations that are still denied to this day.
This time, Russia seems more intent on sending signals than soldiers.