Intel Brief: Poland On Edge Over Russian Drills

Russia's largest ever post-Cold War military games near the border with Poland, simulating a nuclear attack against its smaller neighbor, has put Warsaw on edge and sent it looking for new security assurances, Anna Dunin writes for ISN Security Watch.

Joint Russian-Belarusian war games, conducted in mid-September in Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea, were part of the largest war games Russia has conducted at the eastern border of NATO territory since the end of the Cold War. The exercises, code named operation ‘Zapad-2009,'' included a simulated nuclear attack against Poland, suppression of an uprising by a Polish minority in Belarus and, despite being classified as defensive, included many operations of an external pageoffensive nature.

The war games likely were Russia's demonstration of strength and another attempt to intimidate Poland into cancelling any cooperation with the US on the issue of European missile defense.

Despite Polish government efforts to improve relations between the two countries, a new series of political confrontations between Russia and Poland is likely in the near future.

Many Poles, wary of Russia’s perceived imperialistic ambitions and its perception of Central and Eastern Europe as the external pageKremlin’s sphere of influence, regard the recent exercises as another attempt at intimidation by their eastern neighbor. 

The idea of installing elements of the US missile defense shield in Poland or the Czech Republic has attracted much Russian criticism in recent years. In August 2008, only hours after Poland and the US signed the missile shield agreement, Russian Deputy Chief of Staff General Anatoly Nogovitsyn external pagewarned Poland that it had made itself a target for a nuclear strike.

While the Obama administration decided to cancel the original missile defense plan suggested by the Bush administration, Poland will still likely play a part in a revised European missile defense project. Additionally, the US plans to deploy ground-to-air external pagePatriot missiles in 2010 and new SM-3 missiles in 2015 in Poland.

The games

The Russian and Belarusian armies conducted their ‘Zapad-2009’ (West-2009) joint military manoeuvres throughout September on Belarusian territory (near Lithuania and Poland) and in the Kaliningrad Oblast. Simultaneously, an exclusively Russian exercise dubbed ‘Ładoga-2009,’ which started on 10 August in the Leningrad military district, was in progress. Despite treating the two exercises as separate operations, the Russian General Staff considered them as the integral elements of its operationally and strategically significant ‘Autumn 2009’ training cycle.

As such, military analysts are treating the two as a united exercise and the largest exercise Russian forces have carried out in the last two decades. Official estimates suggest that approximately 13,000 soldiers took part in Zapad, while 7,000 participated in Ładoga. external pageAccording to the Centre for Eastern Studies, however, the number of the troops taking part in the whole exercise was greater than 30,000. The external pagehighest-ranking military leaders of the Russian army, including chief of the Russian General Staff and commanders-in-chief of the Russian navy as well as ground forces, led the exercises. Moreover, the air, land and maritime components all took part in the manoeuvres.

Conducted so close to the Polish border, the exercises caused outrage in Poland, especially due to the external pagesimulated nuclear attack and the practicing of a landing on the coast of a ‘potential aggressor,’ Poland.

Symbolic significance

There were several symbolic elements of significance in the military exercises, particularly visible from the perspective of Russia's western neighbors. The first was the timing of the drills, right around the 70th anniversary of the Soviet aggression against Poland on 17 September 1939. The forces practiced attacking a gas pipeline and suppressing national minority uprisings in Belarus.

In Belarus, the Polish minority has long been a target of the process of Russification and persecuted by the pro-Kremlin government. The war games, despite their official defensive character, included a number of clearly offensive manoeuvres. The types of exercises, weaponry and troops involved, as well as the scenarios practised indicate that Russia has been rehearsing a external pageconventional military campaign against a conventional opponent. The name of the drill, ‘West’, clearly refers to the large military exercise initially organized by the Soviet Union in 1981, which was a demonstration of power to the US and NATO.

Ładoga-2009 indeed resembles the Red Army’s preparation for the invasion of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and an attack at Finland in 1939. For the purpose of the exercises, the border between Russia and these states was accepted as a external pagehypothetical front line.

The recent exercises were the largest military drills that Russia carried out at the border of the Baltic States since the Cold War. While the Kremlin insists that they were necessary for external pagecounterterrorism purposes, the types of forces deployed, tactics rehearsed and the priority level of the exercises sent a different message, a visible demonstration of power.

Sense of security

In early November, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski paid an official visit to the US in order to external pagecontinue a political dialogue with the Obama administration, emphasizing bilateral security cooperation.

During panel discussions at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Sikorski said that following the recent revision of missile defense plans by Washington, Poland required “external pagesome strategic reassurance” from the US, suggesting that the presence of American troops on Polish soil would provide a greater sense of security.

Currently, there are six American soldiers based in Poland. Sikorski mentioned that this need became particularly clear when Russia and Belarus conducted military exercises including external page900 tanks near the Polish border, merely 250 kilometers away from Warsaw. When Poland joined NATO in 1999, the alliance assured Russia that no large NATO contingents would be based in Poland. However, Sikorski claims, the reassurance did not suggest that no forces would be present in Poland.

Numerous Russian media have interpreted Sikorski’s remarks at the CSIS, as an appeal to the US to deploy its army to Poland in order to defend it from Russian aggression. A number of Russian diplomats, radio commentators and external pagejournalists commented on Sikorski’s poor mental health, paranoia and “traditional” Polish anti-Russian sentiment.

The Polish Foreign Ministry external pagequickly responded, calling on the interested parties to refer to the external pagerecording of the debate. While the intervention resulted in an external pageapology from the Russian press agency Interfax, the reaction it provoked in Russian politics and media is a clear indicator of the tense relations between the two countries.

Nor did the significance of the recent Russian excercises go unnoticed by NATO, which will discuss the ‘West’ drills as well as the overall increased activity of the Russian army during an 18 November meeting, after which NATO foreign ministers will external pageaddress that issue during a December summit.

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