Russia launches massive military drills in Arctic

MOSCOW: More than 45,000 Russian troops as well as war planes and submarines started military exercises across much of the country on Monday in one of the Kremlin’s biggest shows of force since its ties with the West plunged to Cold War-lows.
President Vladimir Putin called the Navy’s Northern Fleet to full combat readiness in exercises in Russia’s Arctic North apparently aimed at dwarfing military drills in neighboring Norway, a NATO member.
“New challenges and threats to military security require the armed forces to further boost their military capabilities. Special attention must be paid to newly created strategic formations in the north,” Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said, quoted by RIA news agency.
Shoigu said the order came from Putin, who has promised to spend more than 21 trillion roubles ($340 billion) by the end of the decade to overhaul Russia’s fighting forces.
Russia’s drills would include nearly 40,000 servicemen, 41 warships and 15 submarines, RIA repprted.
Tensions between Russia and Europe worsened last year, leading eight northern European nations to promise to boost cooperation to counter an increase in Moscow’s military activity.
NATO made new allegations last week that Russia was arming separatists in east Ukraine, where more than 6,000 people have been killed in nearly a year of fighting.
Norway said its military drills had been planned before the Ukraine crisis. “However, the current security situation in Europe shows that the exercise is more relevant than ever,” Lt. Gen. Haga Lunde said in a statement. The Russian exercises are due to last for much of the week during which Russia will celebrate its annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, carried out with the help of special forces.
In Brussels, the EU warned Monday of a continued Russian military build-up in Crimea as it condemned Moscow’s “illegal annexation” of the peninsula from Ukraine one year ago.
Meanwhile, Crimea kicked off celebrations with fireworks and concerts on Monday to mark a year since a controversial vote to join Russia that the West blasted as an illegal takeover. The red, white and blue Russian flag fluttered throughout the peninsula, and in the port city of Sevastopol a column of cars roared its way through central squares and memorial sites.