Three Russian Airborne Forces’ Divisions Are To Be In Attendance Of West-2017 Exercises

This exceeds the number of forces that will be officially involved in the joint exercises in Belarus two times.

As Colonel-General Andrei Serdyukov, the commander of the Airborne Forces of Russia, said that an auxiliary control center of the Airborne Forces and three divisions will take part in the Belarusian-Russian exercises West-2017. That is about 24 thousand people, which exceeds the number of forces, planned to be involved in the West-2017, almost twice, bsblog.info reports.

At that, the airborne troops of Russia will allegedly not be sent to Belarus, but "will carry out combat training tasks at unfamiliar ranges of the Western Military District." The concrete plan has not been officially announced yet. But, judging by the recent exercises of the Airborne Forces of Russia, we are talking about offensive actions: long-range transportation, landing in unfamiliar sector of the terrain, outflanking maneuvers, actions in isolation from the main forces.

Thus, the experts’ forecasts that during the West-2017 exercises there will be large-scale exercises with an offensive scenario in the territory of Russia are correct. Against the background of Russia’s exercises, the West-2017 itself and its defensive concept will simply be not noticeable.