By\u00a0Dave Johnson<\/i> <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n The visibility, scale and scope of Russian military exercises have been a focus of Western media and specialist literature since 2014. Russia conducted VOSTOK 2018, the latest iteration of its annual strategic exercises, from early July to 17 September 2018. VOSTOK (meaning \u2018East\u2019) is part of a system of strategic exercises that the Russian Armed Forces have been developing since 2009. It is one of the four named annual strategic exercises conducted on a rotating basis among four of Russia\u2019s five military districts1. These visible events represent a small fraction of what is a whole-of-government and nationwide Russian effort to develop the ability to conduct large-scale conflict on short notice against a major military power and to influence potential adversaries. To better understand and more accurately assess their implications for NATO Allies, VOSTOK 2018 and all of Russia\u2019s strategic exercises, including large-scale snap exercises, need to be seen in their full context.<\/span><\/p>\n \n \n The strategic context<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n Russia\u2019s chief foreign and defence policy aims are; to reassert a leading role for itself on the world scene; to disrupt the current European security architecture to force negotiation of a new one; and to rebuild a security perimeter against perceived external threats (primarily the United States and its NATO Allies). To these ends, Russia has launched a strategic destabilisation campaign<\/a> against the post-Cold War liberal order, which President Putin views as counter to Russia\u2019s long-term interests. Military exercises and operations are part of that campaign. This multidimensional campaign is the proper context within which to consider Russia\u2019s strategic exercises and illuminates their instrumentality for achieving its foreign, security and defence policy aims \u2013 and the related implications for the security of NATO Allies.<\/span><\/p>\n Russia\u2019s first use of military force to revise the Euro-Atlantic security environment came in August 2008 in its short war against Georgia<\/a>. The conflict exposed significant capability shortfalls in the Russian Armed Forces and sparked the military overhaul that continues to this day. This overhaul reflects Moscow\u2019s evolving strategic worldview in line with the Russian perception that conflict can break out with little or no warning in multiple strategic directions. It is underpinned by the Russian leadership\u2019s interpretation of the \u2018Colour Revolutions\u2019 of the 1990s and early 2000s as, from Moscow\u2019s perspective, a non-kinetic form of destabilisation operation waged by Western powers.<\/span><\/p>\n \n \n The comprehensive military reform and modernisation efforts launched after the war with Georgia, including the exercise programme, have transformed the Russian Armed Forces into an effective tool in Russia\u2019s destabilisation campaign against the West, with major implications<\/a> for Euro-Atlantic security. The capabilities developed enabled Russia\u2019s aggressive actions against Ukraine in 2014 and its rapid intervention in Syria in 2015. Russia\u2019s revived military power is a central element of the destabilisation campaign that it has been conducting in the Euro-Atlantic area for the last ten years. At their 2018 Summit in Brussels, Allied leaders declared<\/a> that Russia\u2019s aggressive actions, including the threat and use of force to attain political goals, challenge the Alliance and are undermining Euro-Atlantic security and the rules-based international order.<\/span><\/p>\n Exercising for strategic operations<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n The scheduled strategic exercises (ZAPAD, VOSTOK, TSENTR, KAVKAZ) are the capstone event of the Russian Armed Forces\u2019 annual training cycle. During the several weeks of their actual duration, the exercises fulfil the General Staff\u2019s presidentially mandated task to organise and test the transition of the Russian Federation from peace to war. After completing the transition, they test national preparedness for large-scale, high-intensity warfare against a technologically advanced peer adversary.<\/span><\/p>\n Any assessment of Russian strategic exercises should also take into account<\/a> the large-scale snap (no-notice) exercises2 that President Putin reinstituted in 2013 of which four to six are conducted annually at various levels \u2013 including military district, fleet, or service or branch \u2013 and encompassing units from across most of the Armed Forces in the course of a year.<\/span><\/p>\n The scheduled and snap strategic exercises are conducted under the direction of the Minister of Defence and the operational control of the General Staff through the National Centre for the Direction of Defence. Command and control is a key aspect, testing the effectiveness and readiness of command echelons from the national level down to the brigade level. On this basis, the General Staff has the ability to conduct a strategic command post exercise that depicts national mobilisation and conflict escalation up to and including general war, regardless of the apparent scale and duration of the field training segment of the annual strategic exercise.<\/span><\/p>\n \n \n This overall context makes clear that Russia\u2019s strategic exercises are oriented to multidirectional, theatre-level conflict and their capability- and capacity-building effects are strategic. It is useful to think of this exercise programme as a kind of military \u2018circuit training\u2019 \u2013 exercising different muscle groups on a rotating basis to strengthen the entire organism for the main event. Likewise, the command and control element are like the training of the mind that winning athletes undertake. Similarly, the capabilities built during the strategic exercises are generically applicable to potential future large-scale conflicts. With this as the model for the strategic exercises, even one as distant from NATO\u2019s borders as VOSTOK 2018 has, by design, implications for Allied security.<\/span><\/p>\n The show of force and the actual exercise<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n VOSTOK 2018 was, in effect, two events. The first \u2013 and militarily more significant \u2013 took place at multiple locations from early July until September. The second was a scripted show of force, on 13 September, at the Tsugol training range in the Trans-Baykal Region.<\/span><\/p>\n In line with standard Russian practice, the show of force<\/a> was designed to send ambiguous and contradictory messages: images of growing military strength on the one hand and rhetoric of non-aggression and transparency on the other. For this event, Russia\u2019s senior military leaders drew the desired level of foreign attention to VOSTOK 2018 by stating publicly<\/a> that approximately 300,000 troops \u2013 as well as 1,000 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, 80 ships, and 36,000 tanks, armoured and other vehicles \u2013 would participate in an exercise unprecedented in scale since the Soviet-era ZAPAD 1981.<\/span><\/p>\n This show of force on day three of the \u201cactive phase\u201d of VOSTOK 2018 included live-fire exercises carried out under the observation of President Putin and the Chinese Minister of Defence. The participating Russian, Chinese and Mongolian forces conducted a massive parade of military vehicles to close the day\u2019s events. Despite the hype, the 13 September activities were more a carefully orchestrated military demonstration than a real military exercise. It was staged for media cameras as a backdrop befitting President Putin\u2019s strongman image and his message of military strength to domestic and foreign observers. Nevertheless, one should not overlook the training value \u2013 from a logistics and combat service support perspective \u2013 of the movement of substantial forces and equipment to the Tsugol range and their sustainment in the field.3<\/span><\/p>\n The militarily more significant part of the VOSTOK exercise comprised two phases. The first, from July to early September, entailed weeks of logistics activities to move troops, equipment and supplies to their assembly and exercise areas. The second, \u201cactive phase\u201d, from 11 to 17 September, encompassed the exercise activity and live-fire events at the Tsugol range and other land and maritime ranges in the Eastern Military District, and at other locations across Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n \n \n In preparation for VOSTOK, 16 special exercises of various support functions units were conducted in July and August. \u00a0Also, snap exercises of the Northern Fleet were held in mid-August and of the Central and Eastern Military Districts at the end of August. Mobilisation of reserve forces was also exercised, with 21 units in ten subject territories of the Russian Federation4 mobilised and several thousand citizens recalled from the reserves. Units of the territorial guard of the Central and Southern Military Districts were formed up and transported to the Eastern Military District for exercises. Minister of Defence Shoygu said after the conclusion of VOSTOK that industrial mobilisation was also exercised.<\/span><\/p>\n The Ministry of Defence described the \u201cactive phase\u201d of VOSTOK 2018 as taking place at five combined arms ranges in the Eastern Military District (Tsugol, Bamburovo, Radygino, Uspensky, Bikinsky) and four air force and air defence ranges (Litovko, Novoselskoye, Telemba, Bukhta Anna) and in the Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk and Sea of Japan. However, the Ministry also announced VOSTOK exercise activity at other locations, such as the Kapustin Yar missile range, during the event. According to the Ministry, this phase would include operations by two opposing sides, with the Central Military District and Northern Fleet forces playing the adversary role against Eastern Military District and Pacific Fleet Forces. If true, this would have marked another significant evolution in the complexity and training value of the strategic exercises.<\/span><\/p>\n A number of dual-capable (conventional\/nuclear) weapons systems participated in the exercises, conducting simulated or live-fire launches. This included TU-95MS (BEAR H) strategic bomber cruise missile launches over the Barents, East Siberian, Chukchi and North Arctic Seas and at the Telemba range; ISKANDER (SS-26 STONE) launches at the Kapustin Yar missile range; and MOSKIT (SS-N-22 SUNBURN) cruise missile launches by Pacific Fleet Forces against naval groupings of the notional adversary. Russian Ministry of Defence reporting did not specify whether these systems exercised their nuclear role<\/a>, for example, whether the MOSKIT launch simulated the assigned navy mission \u201cto inflict not less than critical damage on the enemy fleet by use of non-strategic nuclear weapons\u201d. Aerospace forces exercised layered air and missile defence regionally and at exercise ranges.<\/span><\/p>\n How big was VOSTOK 2018?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n The Russian military leadership consistently messaged that VOSTOK 2018 would be the largest Russian military exercise in decades. Western media picked up this refrain. However, informed observers soon expressed scepticism<\/a> and a debate ensued over the size of the impending exercise and what comprised the much-flouted 300,000 figure. This kept media attention focused on VOSTOK in the weeks leading up to the active phase, which was undoubtedly the Russian leadership\u2019s intention.<\/span><\/p>\n Minister of Defence Shoygu described the basis for the 300,000 figure after the conclusion of the exercise. In a post-exercise interview on 17 September with the Russian Defence Ministry\u2019s newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda, Minister of Defence Shoygu described all the preparatory exercises and activities leading up to and including the active phase, stating that “in all this complex of events, more than 300,000 servicemen were involved. This was, actually, the Armed Forces, two military districts (Central and Eastern), two fleets (Pacific and North), aviation, army aviation and our fellow allies – the armed forces of China and Mongolia.<\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In other words, the 300,000 troop figure was an approximate total of all personnel involved in every phase of preparation and execution of the VOSTOK 2018 from early July through to 17 September. The 300,000 figure may be plausible for this timeframe but leaves open the question of the number of participating combat troops. One historical study<\/a> of the ratio of support to combat troops in modern war suggests, out of a total of 300,000 troops, a possible range of 75,000-100,000 combat troops might have participated at the various ranges during the active phase of VOSTOK 2018. However, this is a very rough estimate.<\/span><\/p>\n Russia\u2019s Annual Strategic Exercises 2008-2018<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.onisilos.gr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/3658.jpg\")
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